"Smells Like Nirvana" is a song parody written and performed by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic.

A parody of Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it was released as the lead single from Yankovic's Off the Deep End album in April 1992.

The song is one of Yankovic's most successful singles and was his second top 40 hit in the United States, reaching number 35 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the U.S.

Prior to writing "Smells Like Nirvana", Yankovic's music career had suffered from the poor financial performance of his 1989 feature film, UHF and the associated soundtrack.

[4] To revitalize his career, he considered creating a parody of a Michael Jackson song, which had proven successful twice before with "Eat It" and "Fat".

[4] The band Nirvana started to become popular in the music scene at the time, creating "big, seismic shifts in pop culture" according to Yankovic.

[3] Yankovic decided to base his parody on the publicity around Nevermind, much of which dealt with the inability to comprehend the songs' lyrics, both in their phrasing and the manner in which they were sung by lead vocalist Kurt Cobain.

"[5] Yankovic had initial difficulty getting permission for the parody, as his manager claimed he was unable to contact the group numerous times.

[3] The band worked to match the same fluctuating tempos that were in the original song; Jon Schwartz, Yankovic's drummer, noted that "the [drum] part was pretty loose.

"[3] Compared to previous parodies, where upwards of 20-some instruments had to be mixed together, the simpler composition of "Teen Spirit" made it much easier for the band to complete the song.

[9] At one point, Yankovic purposely garbles the lyrics: "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss [sic]/With all these marbles in my mouth".

[3] He admitted in an interview that he woke up "in the middle of the night" and wrote down the phrase "bargle nawdle zouss", thinking that it would "be important someday.

Yankovic is present on guitar and vocals as Kurt Cobain, with Steve Jay on bass as Krist Novoselic, and Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums as Dave Grohl.

[10][11] Levey said that they were able to recreate much of the same setting with help of the producers of the original Nirvana video once they were aware that the song had Cobain's blessing.

[3] Levey had a brief conversation with Samuel Bayer, the original director of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in preparation for the video shoot.

[3][14] Schwartz attempted to recreate Grohl's wild headbanging during filming, leaving him with a stiff neck several days afterward.

AllMusic reviewer Barry Weber wrote that the song illustrated "the kind of brilliant writing Yankovic was still capable of doing".

[3][5] After Cobain died by suicide in 1994, Yankovic and his band were hesitant to play the extremely popular "Smells Like Nirvana" during live shows.

At one point, Homer writes a new song called "Shave Me"—itself a loose parody of Nirvana's real single "Rape Me".

The sequence of events was written to parallel much of the history of "Smells Like Nirvana", including Kurt Cobain's reaction to the parody.

[3][25] During live performances, Yankovic dons clothing similar to what Cobain wore in the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit".