Set Me Straight

Album: Houdini (1993)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is track from Houdini, the fifth Melvins album but their first on a major label - they signed with Atlantic Records at the urging of Kurt Cobain, who co-produced the set.

    Lead singer Buzz Osborne wrote this pounding rocker in the '80s while the band was still based in Washington State (they later relocated to San Francisco). It had been part of their stage shows for years before appearing on the album. "I always liked it and I thought it fit in really nice on there," Osbore told us. "It's a simple little kind of a hammer-on off of an A chord. I was really new at playing guitar and that was one of the first songs I ever wrote. Almost immediately I realized that playing cover songs wasn't going to get me anywhere. Even though we play a lot of cover songs, you have to write songs. That came out good."

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