Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Album: Best Of Leadbelly (1944)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Also known as "In The Pines," this blues number is about a man who finds out his wife has been cheating on him. He goes out into the cold night and is killed, either in an accident or by murder.
  • The song dates back to the 1800s but was first recorded in 1926 by a banjo player named Dock Walsh. Bill Monroe recorded it in 1941, and Lead Belly in 1944.
  • Nirvana covered this on their 1993 Unplugged In New York album. Kurt Cobain introduced it by saying, "This song is by my favorite performer." Earlier that year, Cobain had been offered one of Leadbelly's guitars for $50,000, although Cobain exaggerated the cost when introducing the song. Neil Young was deeply affected by Cobain's singing at this performance. He said the tortured final vocals sounded "unearthly, like a werewolf, unbelievable."

    MTV wanted Nirvana to do an encore after "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" was over, but Cobain refused, saying that he sucked and that the whole band sounded terrible. He'd thought the performance was a bomb because the audience was so quiet, not realizing that it was so quiet because they were blown away.

    "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" was also one of the few songs Cobain played in public with his wife, Courtney Love. They performed it on September 8, 1993 at Club Lingerie in Los Angeles. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Matt - Millbrae, CA
  • The first rock era cover to make an impact was by The Four Pennies under the title "Black Girl." It made the UK charts in October 1964 and rose to #20, but got nowhere in the USA. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Michael - Villereau, France

Comments: 29

  • Just.another.nirvana.fan from EarthKurt Cobains voice is truly SPECTACULAR!
  • Dusty Road from New OrleansSome people on here are way overthinking this and trying to shoehorn it into their preconceived idea that Blues and Black singers somehow automatically equals slavery. Get over yourselves.
    The song is about a man who finds out his wife has been cheating on him. He correctly goes out into the cold night and is killed, either in an accident or by murder. The song dates back to the 1800s but was first recorded in 1926 by banjo player, Dock Walsh. As with forms of poetry, the Blues can change the point of view and tense of the singer without notice. The song starts from the first-person, present tense perspective of the killed husband and later switches to a third person past, tense narration.
  • Oscar Lopez from @gmailI have no idea or information other than what I am hearing here on google but this is what my gut feeling tells me. Change the lyric my girl with “black girl” then consider that this song might be circa 1850s and listen to the melody. It sounds like it’s about a slave owner talking to his slave that might have tried to escape with her boyfriend. The cruel punishment that the male slave received and the vengeance that the slave owner wants to inflict on the female slave. The beautiful melody of the guitar makes me feel how unjust and cruel slavery was. Where did the black girl slept while she was away from the slave owner? In cold misery! Suffering! Is the slave owner going to kill the black girl? Is the slave owner going to torture the black girl before he kills her? The melody makes me feel how unjust and cruel slavery was! I feel a sense of justice and dignity and love in the melody.
  • Surelee from Austria@Lux Ferrous; Thank you for the profound statement!
  • Lux FerrousThe man asking "Where did you sleep" is the slave owner, telling his girl not to lie to him. The girl tried to escape, slept in the dark pines of the Apalachians/Smoky Mountains, but was found and taken back to the plantation. Her husband had been killed by this slave owner possibly because marriage between slaves was generally not allowed and the girl tried to escape out of fear that something similar would happen to her. "I'm going where the cold wind blows" is the girl realizing she will be hung, and Death's cold wind will blow her body as it hangs from the tree.
  • LiraThe King Creole Jazz Band recorded the song in 1923, entitled as "Where Did You Stay Last Night?". However their version is an instrumental piece.
  • Someone ElseWhen I heard the first refrain I was assuming the song was a husband asking his cheating wife where she’d been the night before, and her lying to him claiming she slept in the cold woods-not the bed of some man she met at the bar. But when I read the lyrics, and saw the verse about her husband being run over by a train I wondered was he killed in an on the job accident, and now she’s been evicted? I could see that-especially if they lived in company housing.
  • Waldo from NashvilleAfter reading many of the comments and re-reading the lyrics, one thing that struck me was the comment that her husband is dead so how is he asking the question? It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the one talking to her is speaking indirectly, i.e. it almost seems like it might be the same person or persons who killed her husband are now coming after her and wondering where they can find her.
  • Dennis Scott from CaliforniaThe song starts with "My girl" or "Black Girl", not my wife or girlfriend. Back in the 1800's when this song originally was written whites used to refer to Black people as boy and girl. Even if they were adults. So we can start with the man saying to this girl where do you sleep. Him and his buddies are gonna have a fun time raping her. She tries to discourage him by saying- I sleep in a very cold dark place. Then he threatens her by saying - there was this one "hard working man" aka slave, who didnt do what he was told and his body was never found. Its not about cheating or girlfriends. Its the reality of Apalachian and Southern folk music of the 1800's. You can hear its not about love, or desire. Its about pain.
  • C-slyce from ArizonaI believe the song is about a girl getting lynched for the murder of her husband. I think it’s written from the point of view of her dead husbands spirit and he’s describing what it’s like to be dead among the trees and such, where no sun shines and it’s just so cold.
  • Someone from SomewhereI think this song is about a man who was abusive towards his wife because he finds out she is cheating and he is mocking/ talking her when he is being prepared to be killed by her and the man she is having a affair with. Lines like ¨Where will you go?¨ asking her and her new boyfriend where they will run to after they kill him and ¨Im going where the cold wind blows.¨ is something he is saying while being taken to the place he will be killed (Likely by car) and ¨In the pines, where the sun dont ever shine, I would shiver the whole night through.¨ is something he is saying because he believes that they will take him to the woods. The paragraph that starts with ¨Her husband was a hard working man¨ is in the perspective of the police, as after her husband asks ¨Where will you go?¨ she decides that the best plan is to paint her husbands murder as a unsolved case by hiding his body and not skipping the town (Likely in the woods) and making the town think she is the victim because her husband was killed by a unknown person. She did this because she knew no one would dare consider the grieving widow as a possible suspect. Another reason she knew this would work is by driving the car a mile out of town and making people think he drove here by himself to meet someone and got killed.
  • John from HoustonLove this song. And I believe Kurt said the offer was 500k.
  • Four Light Years from UsaThere's very little narrative in the song, and apparently the lyrics have changed many, many times over the years. It sounds to me like the accusing line "My girl, don't lie to me. Tell me, where did you sleep last night?" is spoken by a drunk or violent man to his wife. He imagines that she is cheating on him as an excuse to beat her, though she probably has never cheated. The refrain of that question asked over and over suggests he is frequently abusive. The second line of the chorus shifts point of view to the wife. Her response that she slept "In the pines..." may have a couple of different meanings. The verse suggests in a third-person point of view that, at some point, the following happened: Either the girl snapped and murdered the man, or she fled from him one night and the chase resulted in the husband being accidentally decapitated by the train. So, when the girl says she slept "in the pines" it's a metaphorical representation of the dark, isolated, and terrible life she has while living with her husband, and after the husband's death/murder, she must live a dark, isolated, and cold life evading the police.
  • Jake from UsaRead the lyrics she was cheating and the husband murdered the hard working man she was cheating with.
  • Papa Jacque from SwitzerlandWho is asking the black girl these questions. Her husband....no, he's dead. Who else is interested in where she sleeped last night?
  • Vivienne from AustraliaHaving said that now I wonder if his head got caught in the driving wheel and his body got mashed up on the railroad tracks.......

    What a great song with so many ways to interpret it's meaning
  • Vivienne from AustraliaHmm as I learn this song I can't help feeling that the husband was murdered in a race killing, perhaps at work and consequently she is hiding out so as not to be next. OR perhaps as some surmise he was killed by her lover if she had one? But that's not the feeling I get. I can't help feeling she is hiding out from the killers out of fear, loss and grief.

    After all, his work is mentioned followed immediately by "his head was found in a driving wheel* and his body was never found". Implies a work place killing. Where's the body if it was an accident? And why mention his work? And why a Driving wheel? Sounds like murder to me.

    Definition for Driving wheel below.
    *definition: (driving wheel- 1.any of the large wheels of a locomotive, to which power is applied either directly or via coupling rods.
    2.a wheel transmitting motive power in machinery.
  • Troy from VaA lot of people here seem to think Leadbelly wrote this song, but that is not the case. It's a folk song with an unknown author thought to originate in the 1870's. Cobain was referencing the fact that they are covering Leadbelly's interpretation of the song during the MTV Unplugged shoot. The earliest written version of the lyrics - only 4 lines - do reference a black girl appearing to have been lynched but the earliest known recording of the song does not. There were countless recordings around this same time and most of them vary as to who is killed and why.
  • Juve from California In 2012 the rock/alternative duo WZRD sang "Where did you sleep last night?". it's in their self titled album WZRD. The song is sung by the lead vocalist and rapper Kid Cudi.
  • Jay from PaMy girl, my girl, don't you lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night... if that doesn't clearly indicate that she was cheating or at least that he suspected her of just that, I don't know what more to say... The fact that Leadbelly is black, his (not her) body was found, and that another version uses "black" as attribute, doesn't make it a lynch song. Come on, people.
  • Derek from Who Cares?, DcNo matter how many times I hear it, Cobain's screaming "shiver" sends chills down my back.
  • Michael from Skokie, IlThis song is absolutely NOT about cheating. Nothing to do with it. It is about a black woman getting lynched.
  • Alexandria from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emiratesi cant believe no one has brought up the fact that robert plant has covered this song!
    but,of course,nirvana's version more than amazing
    Kurt Cobain-the greatest of the greats!
  • Scott from Boston, MaNirvana's version was by far Kurt's greatest vocal performance IMO. His screaming at the end still gives me goosebumps.
  • Lalah from Wasilla, AkIn the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter" young Loretta Lynne sings this on her daddy's front porch as her future husband "Dew" is bringing back the body of his former moonshine-running partner.
    I always thought the song was a jealous man who drove his woman from the house in a fit of rage. He's found dead and all she can say is she spent the night in the hills afraid to go home.
  • Dan from Parsippany, NjHad anyone been in the room with me when I watched Nirvana's performance of this on the day I found out Kurt was dead, they would've seen a 19-year-old male cry. More than a decade later, I still get choked up. It's that powerful.
  • Stefanie from Rock Hill, ScIf you want you can find Leadbelly's version on a website called www.publicdomain4u.com. You have the option of listening to it or downloading it. Either way it's great.
  • Rocco from Naples, ItalyPlayed nirvana's version at a birthday party in 1997 with an extemporary blues band formed by three guitarists:i played acoustic guitar and was the lead singer...memories of a time when i could have been a musician and not a lawyer as i am today...
  • Jolene from Melbourne, AustraliaI've never heard the original but Cobain's version was heartbreaking to listen to. Probably my fav song from the unplugged album.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Christmas Songs

Christmas SongsFact or Fiction

Rudolf, Bob Dylan and the Singing Dogs all show up in this Fact or Fiction for seasonal favorites.

90210 to Buffy to Glee: How Songs Transformed TV

90210 to Buffy to Glee: How Songs Transformed TVSong Writing

Shows like Dawson's Creek, Grey's Anatomy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed the way songs were heard on TV, and produced some hits in the process.

Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go's

Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go'sSongwriter Interviews

Charlotte was established in the LA punk scene when a freaky girl named Belinda approached her wearing a garbage bag.

Dexys (Kevin Rowland and Jim Paterson)

Dexys (Kevin Rowland and Jim Paterson)Songwriter Interviews

"Come On Eileen" was a colossal '80s hit, but the band - far more appreciated in their native UK than stateside - released just three albums before their split. Now, Dexys is back.

Bryan Adams

Bryan AdamsSongwriter Interviews

What's the deal with "Summer of '69"? Bryan explains what the song is really about, and shares more of his songwriting insights.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.