I've said it before: Drum creativity is song creativity. If Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl had decided to live his life as a cowardly number, a spiritual bust, he would have plopped his forgettable ass down on the drum stool and played a rock 4-beat on this song, lending nothing, asking nothing, then called it a night and headed back home for the latest in a lifetime stream of must-see TV. And he would not have embarked on the journey he did.
Luckily Grohl came to the party lathered up and ready to break this band out of obscurity. His verse beat is a rolling tank of eighth notes alternating between snare and kick and unlocking the great strum pattern and creative chord choices of the guitar. The drums interpret the guitar rather than just act as the metronome.
The short transition out of the verse is another crafty unison of guitar and drum ideas, and the pounding drum fill is so satisfying to play on a tuned-up kit.
The choruses really kick, with Grohl smashing the cymbal and snare down on the quarter notes, the kick drum holding the eighth notes with alternating stresses. The guitars use the heaviness principle of two chords with the root notes at wide intervals.
The middle section is overproduced on the album recording. Because of this odd digression, Dave Grohl jokingly referred to "Drain You" as Nirvana's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Played live, this section became more about a quiet pulse exploding into aggressive noise, falling off, and exploding again. It is where they really began to explore the expressiveness of pure noise. Before familiarity took over, the final build into the third verse would give me chills.
The vocal melodies for Nirvana were so unique always. Like Grohl on the drums, Kurt Cobain never wanted to sing a phrase that sounded rehashed. He was militantly original. So we have a verse melody that screams through these high notes, jumping intervals, varying its rhythm, and ending on a great resolution downward on a major chord. We have choruses of weird, moany long notes singing about something gross, but hitting an essential, catchy half step that finishes each phrase. It's sharp, pop Nirvana in the verses and weird, indy Nirvana in the choruses.
My favorite song on the Nevermind album? Hmmm. Just may be.