Nirvana Wrote a Song About ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ and It’s Dark as Hell

Kurt Cobain wasn’t exactly known to shy away from dark subject matter in his songwriting. There was the one about the real-life abduction and torture of a teenage girl, the one about abortifacient tea, and oh, the one literally called “Rape Me.” He also liked to invoke wholesome elements of pop culture, like Teen Spirit deodorant, to juxtapose against those uglier topics. In that respect, it’s not as weird as it sounds that Nirvana recorded a song about being sexually assaulted, tortured and killed by characters from The Andy Griffith Show, but it does sound pretty freaking weird.

“Floyd the Barber” is the second song on Nirvana’s first album, Bleach, which was released in 1989, well before their early ‘90s breakthrough into the mainstream and anyone would care about their musical desecration of the residents of Mayberry. The song begins with the narrator entering Floyd’s barber shop, as the “Bell on door clangs, come on in” and “Floyd observes my hairy chin.” Floyd instructs him to “Sit down chair, don’t be afraid” before placing a “steamed hot towel on my face” and beginning to perform a routine shave, but then things take a turn. 

“Barney ties me to the chair / I can’t see, I’m really scared,” Cobain sings, before “Floyd breathes hard, I hear a zip,” and the beloved barber performs an act upon the narrator — with his “pee-pee.” Yes, Kurt Cobain sang the word “pee-pee.” The narrator then senses “others in the room / Opie, Aunt Bee, I presume,” who “take turns and cut me up” before Aunt Bee suffocates the narrator in a similar fashion. You know. Crotchly.

As great as it would have been to get Griffith’s take on the song, or anyone else involved with the show, it’s unlikely they even knew about it. Even after Nevermind generated more widespread interest in Nirvana’s earlier releases, none of the songs from Bleach ever got much radio or MTV attention. The only exception is “About a Girl,” and that was only because Nirvana recorded it for MTV Unplugged, introducing it as a song “off our first record,” which “most people don’t own.” 

Incidentally, “About a Girl” comes just after “Floyd the Barber” on Bleach. A slight adjustment to the set list could have given us a very different world, specifically one where we get Ron Howard’s opinion on Nirvana. Anyone have his phone number?