Hole Lyrics Challenge Trivia Quiz

Answer: Loaded

'Loaded' is an album track from Hole's debut album, 'Pretty on the Inside'. The repeated motif of the 'weird red light' has been interpreted as a reference to a red light district, or a drug experience, 'loaded' being slang for being high on drugs, Courtney being a heroin addict at the time. Like many songs on the album, Courtney alternates between half-singing, half-talking and screaming. 'Pretty on the Inside' also features the rhythm section of drummer Caroline Rue and bassist Jill Emery, both of whom would be replaced by the time of 'Live Through This'.

Answer: Reasons to Be Beautiful

'Reasons to Be Beautiful' is an album track from 'Celebrity Skin'. Courtney said that the song was inspired by Los Angeles, as were several other songs on the album, such as 'Malibu' and 'Boys on the Radio', and that it originally had a Mazzy Star feel to it. 'Reasons to Be Beautiful' was also the working title for the album.

Some Hole fans have interpreted the song as being about Kurt Cobain, especially as the line 'it's better to rise than fade away' is thought to be a callback to the Neil Young line Cobain quoted in his suicide note, 'it's better to burn out than fade away'.

It was co-written with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey and Jordon Zadorozny, who had previously played in Tinker with bassist Melissa Auf der Maur (who would later replace D'Arcy Wretzky in the Smashing Pumpkins).

Answer: Clouds

'Clouds' is an album track on 'Pretty on the Inside', and is a cover version of Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now', albeit with a twist. The lyrics quoted here are followed by 'and feather canyons everywhere/I've looked at clouds that way'. 'Clouds' also mixes up other verses from 'Both Sides Now', with Courtney adding her own lyrics in between. Courtney's mother Linda was a fan of Joni Mitchell. Courtney also said of the album that she "liked to place beautiful imagery next to [censored]-up imagery, because that's how I view things".

Answer: Rock Star

'Rock Star' is the final track on Hole's second (and best!) album, 'Live Through This', but it is a mislabelling; the real title of the song is 'Olympia', and the original 'Rock Star' was a completely different song, with the line 'how'd you like to be Nirvana?/So much fun to be Nirvana/A barrel of laughs to be Nirvana'.

However, this 'Rock Star' could not be included on 'Live Through This' as it was released shortly after Kurt Cobain's death, so 'Olympia' was used as a replacement, but was titled as 'Rock Star' as the album artwork had already been printed.

It has been interpreted as a dig at the riot grrrl scene, as some of its major figures - such as Bikini Kill - were based in Olympia. The song has both a false start and a false end; Courtney also says 'no, we're not done' at the end of the recording.

Answer: 20 Years in the Dakota

'20 Years in the Dakota' is on 'My Body, the Hand Grenade', a collection of B-sides, EPs, live tracks and other songs, and was also a B-side on the standalone single 'Beautiful Son'. The song is about Yoko Ono, another female musician married to a famous man, with whom Courtney has often been unfavourably compared.

The Dakota is an apartment building in New York, where Ono and John Lennon lived for several years with their son Sean; Lennon was murdered by Mark Chapman outside it. The song also references the Beatles in the line 'you don't [censored] with the Fabulous Four/Or you'll spend the rest of your life picking things up off the floor', and Courtney singing 'hey Jude' at the end.

She also gets in a dig at riot grrrls, telling them that they will forever be in Ono's debt.

Answer: Jennifer's Body

'Jennifer's Body' is an album track on 'Live Through This' and is thought to have taken its name from Jennie Boddy, a music publicist. A common interpretation of the song is that it is about the murder of a woman who was kept in a box before being killed and dismembered. Courtney and drummer Patty Schemel came up with the idea for the song in 1992 while they were in San Francisco, and it was recorded for 'Live Through This' in two takes.

The 2009 horror film 'Jennifer's Body', starring Megan Fox as a possessed teenage girl called Jennifer, takes its name from the song.

Answer: Old Age

'Old Age' has been recorded by both Hole and Nirvana, and the Hole version appears on 'My Body, the Hand Grenade' and was a B-side on 'Beautiful Son'. The introduction also appears on 'Live Through This', before leading into the cover of Young Marble Giants' 'Credit in the Straight World'. Kurt Cobain wrote the melody, and both he and Courtney wrote their own lyrics. Nirvana's version was originally intended to be on 'Nevermind', but did not make the cut, though a rough studio version appeared on the box set 'With the Lights Out'. One of the themes running through the artwork and songs on 'My Body, the Hand Grenade' is decapitated women, such as Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette (both of whom were executed by beheading), and Jayne Mansfield (who was killed in a car crash and thought to have been decapitated, though this turned out to be untrue), and the headless dummy on the cover.

Hester Prynne is the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'.

Answer: Northern Star

'Northern Star' is an album track on 'Celebrity Skin'. It was one of the last songs to be recorded for the album; guitarist Eric Erlandson was playing around with a riff and Courtney liked it so much, she asked him to record it. Although producer Michael Beinhorn had Erlandson repeatedly record the guitar part with various different guitars, they ultimately went with the original track.

The song was recorded in half an hour. Courtney said of the lines about angels ('all the angels kneel into the northern lights'), "I like the idea of the angels having to succumb to a cold and infamous power," and that it was inspired by Herman Melville.

Answer: Garbadge Man

No, the name is not a typo, it is supposed to be spelled like that! 'Garbadge Man', originally known as 'Garbadge', is a track from 'Pretty on the Inside' and was also the first Hole song to have a music video, which was shown on MTV in 1992. It is one of the oldest songs on the album, having been written before 1990, and its melody bears similarities to both 'Violet' and 'Turpentine'.

The version used for the music video is a remix by producer and Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, who removed the swearing in the chorus, downtuned the song and took out the coda. Distillers singer Brody Dalle, whose band Sourpuss supported Hole in Australia when she was in her teens, is a fan of the song, noting that it has a poppy tune buried under 'chainsaw guitar'.

Answer: Turpentine

'Turpentine' is one of Hole's earliest songs, often thought to be the first that Courtney and Eric wrote together. It appears on 'My Body, the Hand Grenade' and the 1997 EP 'The First Session', which also features the single 'Retard Girl' (which was initially supposed to be the only song they were recording) and its B-sides, 'Johnnies in the Bathroom' and 'Phonebill Song'.

The session cost $500 and the songs were co-produced by Eric and Courtney's then husband, James Moreland. One of the lines, 'my water breaks like turpentine', was later repurposed for '20 Years in the Dakota'.

Answer: I Think That I Would Die

'I Think That I Would Die' - which, incidentally, is my favourite song on 'Live Through This' - was co-written by Kat Bjelland, singer/guitarist of Babes in Toyland and Courtney's old bandmate in Pagan Babies, which also included future L7 bassist Jennifer Finch.

It was inspired by Courtney and Kurt's custody battle for their daughter, Frances Bean. Like many songs on 'Live Through This', it features milk as a motif. Bjelland also co-wrote 'Best Sunday Dress', a B-side on 'Celebrity Skin' and former Pagan Babies song, a snippet of which appears on 'Starbelly' on 'Pretty on the Inside'.

Answer: Softer, Softest

'Softer, Softest' (originally titled 'Pee Girl') is the fourth and final single from 'Live Through This', released in December 1995. Like several other songs, it mentions milk as a motif; the chorus includes the lines 'your milk makes me melt/your milk is so [sour/sick/mean]'.

The line 'Pee Girl gets the belt' is a reference to Courtney's childhood nickname of 'Pee Girl', when her classmates made fun of her due to her shabby and smelly clothes. (A young Courtney appears on the back of 'Live Through This'.) Kurt Cobain sang backing vocals on 'Softer, Softest' and several other songs on 'Live Through This', and played bass on the original recording of the song in 1993, as Kristen Pfaff - who played bass on 'Live Through This' and died of a heroin overdose in 1994 - had not joined the band yet.

Answer: Celebrity Skin

'Celebrity Skin' is the title track of Hole's third album and the first single to be released from it. The 'pound of flesh' line is a reference to the William Shakespeare play 'The Merchant of Venice'; Shylock, a Jewish moneylender and antisemitic stereotype, demands a pound of flesh as payment.

The song also quotes 'Superscription' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti ('look in my face/my name is might-have-been'). Billy Corgan wrote the main riff for the song. Courtney claimed the song was called 'Celebrity Skin' because she had 'touched a lot of it'.

It was Hole's most commercially successful single, charting at Number One on the US Modern Rock Tracks Chart (now known as 'Alternative Airplay') and Number 19 on the UK Singles Chart.

Answer: Hit So Hard

'Hit So Hard' is a track on 'Celebrity Skin'. It is a homage to the Crystals 'He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)', a live cover of which from 'MTV Unplugged' appears on 'My Body, the Hand Grenade'. Courtney said that she had 'always wanted to write a girl group song', and that 'Hit So Hard' was a girl group homage. Like many songs on the album, it features drowning as a motif ('I look at him and drown').

The album is also dedicated to 'anyone who ever drowned'. Courtney said at a gig in 1999 that the song was about sex, as opposed to domestic violence.

Answer: Mrs. Jones

'Mrs. Jones' is an album track from 'Pretty on the Inside'. One interpretation of the song, in a retrospective album-by-album review by Hannah Levin for 'The Stranger', suggests that it is about a rape, with the viewpoint alternating between the rapist, the victim and the narrator, who takes the victim's side.

It also quotes a line from Rudyard Kipling's 'The Ballad of East and West' ('east is east and west is west'). The riff is borrowed from 'Dark Entries' by Bauhaus.