What does Heart Shaped Box mean?

Nirvana: Heart Shaped Box Meaning

Album cover for Heart Shaped Box album cover

Song Released: 1998


Heart Shaped Box Lyrics

She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box for a weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey!
Wait!
I've got a new...

  1. YourFan
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    Aug 29th 2007 !⃝

    I agree with some of you but I'll just say this...

    This song is about Kurt's fascination with the female body.
    but the song's title was inspired by a heart-shaped box that Courtney Love gave him when Kurt was on tour.

    Kurt also has said the flowers remind him of vaginas, and in this song he sings of "meat-eating orchids" that "forgive no one just yet."
    Also Courtney Love has said that "Heart-Shaped Box" was written about her vagina.

  2. anonymous
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    Aug 28th 2007 !⃝

    The song represents Courtney's female anatomy, under which he obviously fell. His complaint was that she locked him in and stayed over him taunting him constantly, she narcissistically crawled up his ass and died to the point that she could hear him think and charged him for his own thoughts before he could bring them to action... complaint of forever in debt to your priceless advice...I believe Kurt fell for a narcissists, and caught candida.

  3. anonymous
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    Aug 18th 2007 !⃝

    This is a song about Kurt's fascination with the female body.

  4. anonymous
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    Jun 17th 2007 !⃝

    Courtney owned a heart shaped box, which she kept love letters from her x, smashing pumpkin singer, Billy, in. Kurt found the box and locked himself up for weeks reading the letters. He became obsessed.

    It's also his passive aggressive feelings about their unexpected pregnancy, which he didn't know how to deal with.

    And for those of you who think the song has anything to do with religion, you're wrong! Treatments are usually written by the producer/director of the video and approved by the record company. The artists' rarely have a say in the concept. A lot of videos are simply pretentious and random designed to draw the viewer in, and usually have nothing to do with the true meaning of the lyrics written by the artist. This is a ploy to sell more records.

    Read the lyrics again and you will get a better understanding of what was really going on - it is that simple.

    This is not hearsay!
    Respectfully.

  5. anonymous
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    May 19th 2007 !⃝

    The song is about abortion seriously. Listen to the lyrics "umbilical noose" and the flower comment is true vaginas are compared to flowers a lot. The song was called Heart Shaped Coffin at first, but that was too obviously about abortion.

  6. anonymous
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    Apr 24th 2007 !⃝

    Personally, I think this song is about abortion.

    Like the heart shaped box is the uterus (heart shaped coffin would have worked even better) and the lyrics are coming from the fetuses point of view.
    Read through the lyrics, it makes sense.

    Thats just my opinion, though.

  7. anonymous
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    Apr 12th 2007 !⃝

    hey dude that was a nice explanation and it makes sense... but the music video has pretty much NOTHING to do with the song at all... It's entirely about a wierd dream he had, and he made the video exactly like his dream...
    he may have added some subtle things which hint at your explanations,, ,but the main idea of the video is his dream (with subtle undertones)...

  8. anonymous
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    Apr 3rd 2007 !⃝

    This song is about when Courtney was having an affair on Kurt with someone from the Smashing Pumpkins, she kept a heart shaped box which had letters from Courtney's affair relationship and Kurt obviously found out.

  9. JLB
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    Mar 27th 2007 !⃝

    It's definitely about Courtney Love and sex.

  10. anonymous
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    Mar 4th 2007 !⃝

    It's a love song

    SHe Eyes me like a pisces when I am weak = She brings me strenght when I am weak

    I've been locked inside you heart shaped box for weeks= I've Been a slave for your love / I love you so much

    and so on and so on

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  11. Angelmisty
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    Feb 24th 2007 !⃝

    It's tribute to Courtney Love.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  12. anonymous
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    Feb 23rd 2007 !⃝

    According to wikipedia.com, Courtney Love wasn't the one who introduced Kurt Cobain to heroin.

    I like the idea of this song being general. It makes more sense, because I hear Kurt didn't like the media or fame. Then why would he write and sing about his personal life for all to hear and know?

  13. anonymous
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    Feb 20th 2007 !⃝

    I think most of you are correct
    I feel it's about obviously Courtney and Kurt
    and how Courtney introduced Kurt to heroin, which made him mentally ill, but he was addicted, "forever in debt to your priceless advice"
    i feel its also about Courtney giving Kurt a heart shaped box full of trinkets, but her treating him with disrespect, interference and just not being that great to him, making him feel trapped like the trinkets inside her heart shaped box, "I've been trapped inside your heart shaped box, four weeks"
    also adding to that I feel that it's about how cruel she was, and that her heart was fale, it looked and was shaped like a heart, but it was filled with nothing but want and not need.
    it also about the sexual and mental difficulties Kurt and Courtney shared.

  14. anonymous
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    Feb 2nd 2007 !⃝

    Maybe the video and lyrics have different meanings.

  15. anonymous
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    Jan 31st 2007 !⃝

    I think that the guy two comments before me nailed in right on the head.
    I agree with it all. Some people may look at it and say that these lyrics were looked into too much, and that Kurt was just a heroin addict with pshycotic thoughts.
    But Kurt was actually that deep.
    He said he was sick with people, and had been for a while. Do you think that someone as brilliant as him, and as deep as him would just TELL you the message?
    No.
    He wanted you to look for a message.

    And Kurt also said that he didn't write songs as personally as people thought. I mean, sure the messages in the song/video are personal, but they're not specifically aimed at HIS life and HIS condition. His songs were generalizations of his opinions and outlooks on life.
    So no. I don't think this song had anything to do with Courtney fucking Love.

    Bitch.




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