Son of a Gun

Song: Son of a Gun
Artist: The Vaselines
Album: The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History




The Vaselines were a Scottish band formed in the 80’s by Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee. Their sound took a very DIY indie approach with off key vocals and subversive subject matter. Like The Raincoats, the Vaselines got their greatest exposure from the help of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain who publicly raved about the band and covered many of their songs. “Son of a Gun” was covered on Nirvana’s b-sides album “Incestiside” along with “Molly’s Lips.” Nirvana most famously covered the bands “Jesus Don’t Want Me For a Sunbeam” which they performed on their MTV Unplugged special and album.

The band only lasted through one release and has performed sporadically in past years, opening for Nirvana, and lastly performing in 2006 (they hadn’t done so since 1990) part of a joint tour that Kelly and Frances did together to promote their own solo work.

The bands best known songs were issued (once Cobain was raving about them) as a collection called “The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History.” If you’re a fan of quirky lo-fi indie-pop I highly recommend it.

Enjoy.

Jesus Don’t Want me For a Sunbeam (live)


The band also (oddly) covered the Divine track “You Think You’re a Man” which is really, really, something…