"Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" was written in 1992. The band's drummer,
Dave Grohl, recalled hearing it for the first time during a rehearsal in his basement that year and realizing that the band would soon be recording a new album. According to bassist
Krist Novoselic, it was brought to the band "pretty intact," although the "lyrics were left for last."
Farmer biography The song was inspired by the story of Seattle actress Frances Farmer, who appeared in numerous films and theater productions during her career. Following early accusations of
atheism and
communism, reports began to surface of allegedly erratic behavior, and Farmer was arrested and committed to psychiatric institutions several times before being diagnosed with
paranoid schizophrenia. This led to a stay of several years at
Western State Hospital in
Lakewood, Washington, at the request of her mother and other family members. In her autobiography,
Will There Really Be a Morning?, Farmer later recounted what she called the "unbearable terror" of being in the hospital, claiming that she "was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths." The accuracy of the book, which was published posthumously and partially
ghost written by a friend, is disputed, but Farmer is confirmed to have suffered from poor conditions at the hospital, undergoing
electroconvulsive shock therapy as was then standard at the institution. After her release in 1950, Farmer successfully fought for release from the
conservatorship of her mother and attempted a comeback as an actor. She was diagnosed with
esophageal cancer due to her excessive smoking, and died in 1970 at the age of 56.
Cobain's interest in Farmer Cobain had been fascinated by Farmer's life since high school, when he first read the controversial 1978 Farmer biography,
Shadowland, by
Seattle Post-Intelligencer film critic,
William Arnold. According to journalist Gillian G. Garr, Cobain grew to identify "even more with Farmer's story" after his own success with Nirvana, "especially with Farmer's unconventional nature, her outspoken dislike of commercialism, her hounding by the media, and her sad, unjust fate." Arnold instead wrote an article for the
Post-Intelligencer, published on April 14, 1994, titled "Cobain Found a Kindred Spirit in Frances Farmer's Troubled Life," in which he stated that "Cobain's behaviour might be interpreted as the actions of a man determined to embody the spirit of Frances Farmer." Cobain discussed the song in depth in Azerrad's 1993 biography,
Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, saying that "I guess that's my way of letting the world know that
bureaucracy is everywhere and it can happen to anybody and it's a really evil thing. The story of Frances Farmer is so sad and it can happen to anybody and it almost felt at a time that it was happening to us...but it's mainly just exposing the Frances Farmer story to people." Cobain's and Love's daughter,
Frances Bean Cobain, was named after
Frances McKee, vocalist and guitarist for the
Scottish indie pop band
the Vaselines, and not Farmer. == Personnel ==