Celebrity Skin (song) - Background and History

Background and History

The song was written and recorded in 1997 after Hole's reported hiatus in 1996 due to frontwoman Courtney Love's rising movie career. According to Love, co-writer Billy Corgan wrote the song's main guitar riff during his time at the Celebrity Skin sessions.

The lyrics, written by Love, contain references to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem A Superscription, and William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ("My name is 'Might-Have-Been"), as well as the song sharing the name of an indie American pornographic magazine and a short-lived punk rock group from Los Angeles that featured ex-Germs drummer Don Bolles. Love joked on Later... with Jools Holland in 1995 that the song was entitled "Celebrity Skin" "'cause touched a lot of it."

It was also used in the film American Pie, but did not appear on the soundtrack, as well as being featured in the video games Rock Band and Sing Star as a playable track and downloadable content. The song received two Grammy nominations for Best Rock Song, losing to "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, losing to "Pink" by Aerosmith.

In 2012, the song was performed by Heather Morris and Chord Overstreet in the Glee episode "Makeover"

A line from the song inspired the alternative rock group Garbage to name their third album Beautiful Garbage.

Read more about this topic:  Celebrity Skin (song)

Famous quotes containing the words background and, background and/or history:

    I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    ... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)