On a Plain Lyrics Meaning

Kurt knew he was the same piece of crap as everyone else but he still couldn't help but be bothered by what other people did. He thought most people were close-minded and bigots, and he didn't appreciate most artist's contribution to modern music. He only really identified with a handful of bands and he felt music was something sacred that people were just taking advantage of... raping and pillaging until it was ruined.

I think he thought he'd feel terrible about "selling out", even though I don't particularly feel like he ever did. When Nevermind went huge, he got pretty conflicted about it. This song is funny, because I think it's really a justification of motive and the resulting course of action.

Most of the lyrics are absolute nonsense, and that was kind of the point. If he did sell out, who did he sell out to? To fans who would sing along to a bunch of random words like it was the best song ever written? He got high and scribbled down some gibberish, sold it, and everyone ate it up.

When he was alive he used what money he made to buy more drugs until he was totally numb and high all the time. When he said, "I'm on a plain, I can't complain", he can't be too low because of the constant usage of drugs, but he can't be truly high because of his tolerance. When he says "I love myself better than you, I know it's wrong so what should I do" it's as I said, he knows he isn't better than other people, but it's still hard to not think of them as stupid.

The last message part could quite possibly be a reference to him planning his suicide, but we'll never know for certain. It could simply be a play on how most of what he'd said in the song up to that point is of much relevance to anything. It could be both.

Those couple of lyrics in there are pretty much the only coherent phrases in the entire song. Everything else is just a mockery of himself as a junkie hypocrite, the music industry, all the poser fans that he couldn't stand, and the rest of the world.