On Lil Nas X’s latest single “Panini,” among the credited songwriters are Kurt Cobain, as the track interpolates Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” Now Haim have decided to take advantage of that by mashing up the two songs during their appearance on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge.
The song’s signature synth line sounds cool played on guitar, while the chorus on this version takes a more low-key approach than the original, settling into a combination of vocals and wah-pedal-ed guitar. Towards the end of the performance, they band transitions into “In Bloom,” and the transition is pretty seamless. For those who hadn’t noticed how similar the two songs are, it also illustrates just how alike they really are.
Lil Nas X previously told Zane Lowe of “Panini,” “A lot of songs will even come to me like I’m sleeping or something. Like a melody and I’m like, wow, that’s fly. But the craziest things about ‘Panini,’ is it introduced me to Nirvana’s album Nevermind. It’s like I always seen the cover but I never actually listened to it. And people was like, ‘Wow, he sampled Nirvana.’ I was like, no. It’s like I didn’t realize I was using almost the exact same melody. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, actually.”
He also thanked Kurt Cobain’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain, writing in a tweet, “panini interpolates parts of nirvana’s ‘in bloom’. special thank you to frances bean cobain for this!!”
Listen to Haim’s mash-up cover of Lil Nas X’s “Panini” and Nirvana’s “In Bloom” here, beginning at around 2:14:55 into the clip.
