Scentless Apprentice

May 10th, 2009

I recently finished Patrick Suskind’s wonderfully vivid Perfume, a book, of course, which was a favorite of Kurt Cobain’s and the subject matter of the song “Scentless Apprentice”. So when the song came up on shuffle a couple of days back, I paid closer attention to the lyrics and Googled them to see what the hell he’s yelling during that chorus.

Most lyric transcribings I could find have the lyric as something like “go away”. This time, however, with the knowledge of the backstory firmly in hand, I heard something different. I contend that what he’s actually yelling is the name of the scentless apprentice himself, the book’s protagonist, Grenouille (grahn-way-ee). Give it a listen: Grenouille

Entry Filed under: Literature,Music