"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 both as a single and as part of Yankovic's Off the Deep End album in April 1992. "Smells Like Nirvana" was written during a three-year career low for Yankovic after the financial failure of his film UHF, but captured the quickly-rising popularity of grunge and Nirvana's success. The song was written to poke fun at the fact that many people had a hard time understanding Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain's lyrics in the original song. After being unable to contact Nirvana by conventional means, Yankovic called Cobain while the band was on the set of Saturday Night Live, where Cobain quickly gave permission to record the parody.