Watch: Kurt Cobain's plagiarism that was inspired by the riff intro of "Come as you are"

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As many will know Nirvana was once accused of plagiarism for the resemblance of the riff of the song "Come as you are" and the song "eighties" by the band Killing joke (1984 song), this last band demanded -Nirvana that Give them credit for being merely for the song's riff, Nirvana didn't want to drag it out as much and publicly acknowledged that they had referenced the Killing song prank.

The funny thing is that Killing joke had not been very original with the riff of "eighty" either, because 2 years earlier in 1982 the band The Damned had released a song with a riff that curiously was very similar to "eighty", but how? If eighty is a song from 84 , apparently Nirvana is not the only band that was inspired by an existing riff.

Why was Kurt Cobain reluctant to release Come As You Are?

Both Kurt, the band and their management were a little weary of releasing Come as You Are due to its similarity to Eighties. A single from the punk legends Killing Joke.

There were talks of releasing In Bloom instead, but as reported by Kerrang! Danny Goldberg - who was head of Nirvana's management Gold Mountain thought it was the better track.

The former manager told Carrie Borzillo in Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-By-Day Chronicle: "Kurt was nervous about Come As You Are, because it was too similar to a Killing Joke song," adding: "but we all thought it was a better song to go with."

Although it was probably the right way to go commercially - Cobain's fears came to fruition as the similarity wasn't lost on the punk band.

Goldberg went on to say that the late grunge rocker was indeed right to be concerned as "Killing Joke later did complain about it."

Listen to the 1984 single here:

Original song: 

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