Scentless Apprentice

This song was inspired by the novel Perfume by Patrick Suskind, about a man born with an amazing sense of smell but no smell of his own. He was an apprentice in a perfume shop and becomes a murderer of young girls for their scent.

A nine-minute version appears on Nirvana's With The Lights Out compilation.

This song is credited to all three members of the band. As Kurt Cobain said in interviews around the time In Utero was released, Dave Grohl came up with the drum beat and the guitar riff for the song. All three members worked to refine the song and Kurt wrote the lyrics. Cobain also said he preferred having input from the other two to take the pressure off of him to come up with all the songs. He said he was looking forward to more collaboration like that in the future, a collaboration that sadly never came to fruition.