Violet (song)
"Violet" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The song was written circa 1991, and was played at several live shows between 1991 and 1992 during Hole's Pretty on the Inside tours. The song was eventually placed as the opening track on the band's second studio album Live Through This (1994) and was released as the group's seventh single and the third from that album in January 1995.
Courtney Love has stated several times that the song was written about her relationship with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan in 1990, and the lyrics speak from the point of view of an angry narrator who has given up on a romance, with the verses: "Go on, take everything, take everything I want you to", and "I told you from the start, just how this would end / When I get what I want, I never want it again". The song also explores themes of sexual exploitation at the hands of others and of oneself.
"Violet" peaked at number 29 on the Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks after the album's release in 1994, and is arguably one of Hole's most well-known songs. It charted at number 116 on The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born list by Blender magazine in 2005.
Read more about Violet (song): Origin and Recording History, Reception, Music Video, Appearances in Popular Media, Track Listing, Chart Positions, Musicians and Personnel
Famous quotes containing the word violet:
“It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower—and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)