Watch Echo & The Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch Live at Rolling Stone

When Rob Sheffield caught Echo & the Bunnymen in New York recently, frontman Ian McCulloch in rare form, pausing mid-song to announce, "Quiet down — this is a speech. If I play my cards right it might be a soliloquy. Can anyone spell soliloquy?"

McCulloch didn't challenge anyone to a spelling contest when he stopped by the Rolling Stone studios to play not one but three stunning songs for us, including the awe-inspiring "The Killing Moon." Enjoy the Ocean Rain classic above, and watch the Liverpool legend perform "The Fountain" and "Think I Need It Too" — both from this year's The Fountain, the band's 11th LP — below.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

More Song Stories entries »

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