Courtney Love is preparing to auction her handwritten lyrics to Hole’s ‘Violet’ for charity, and has told NME the song is “not just about Billy Corgan”.
The song was the opening track to the band’s second album ‘Live Through This’ in 1994, and was written by Love three years earlier during Hole’s tour ahead of the release of their 1991 debut album ‘Pretty On The Inside’.
Now, Love has donated the original handwritten pages of lyrics for the song to an auction for a fundraiser by the wildlife sanctuary Ellis Park, which is running until December 15. All proceeds will go to the charity, which is dedicated to caring for rescued animals in Sumatra. You can see the lyrics pages below and bid for them here.
The song has long been thought to have been written about The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Corgan, with whom Love was in a relationship in 1990. However, Love has exclusively told NME that there is more to the inspiration for the song than that.
“It’s not just about Billy Corgan, as many might assume; it’s about sitting on the fire escape of his flat, sipping cheap wine and taking a Vicodin (oh, to be young!) while the Chicago sun sets, leaving behind a bejewelled amethyst sky,” she explained.
“Sometimes I just channel whatever comes. I realise my comment on Jools Holland was a bit mean – I was just being bitchy beefy. But someone has to uphold the standards of good faith beef!”
Love is referencing comments made on Later…with Jools Holland in 1995, when she said ‘Violet’ was “a song about a jerk, I hexed him and now he’s losing his hair”.
Continuing about the song, Love added: “It is somewhat influenced by Pope and Brontë. I drew from Pope’s The Dunciad and an Emily Brontë poem. I did borrow from Brontë but ultimately decided to cross it out. The rhyme scheme is good but it felt too much like imitation – I was trying being “method”, but it ended up feeling excessive.”
“The piece also touches on the theme of being caught between two boys—representing the angel and devil within me, as well as my own nature. There’s a line that mentions “Danny’s new number,” referring either to Goldberg or a drug dealer—another Danny, known as “Bobby Bones,” who Flea will remember. Yikes!”
“Ultimately, nothing matters more than animals, including humans. For more information, visit @ellisparksumatra or go to ellispark.org,” she concluded.
Love wrote ‘Violet’ alongside Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson, with whom she formed the band in 1989. The lyrics first appeared on a flyer that Love designed to advertise a Hole show at the Jabberjaw venue in Los Angeles in August 1991. The pages going up for auction were discovered by Love when she was researching her memoir and found them in an old notebook, which had been returned to her by police after spending years in a stolen locker.
The band released four three studio albums before disbanding in 2002. A reunion took place in 2009, resulting in their fourth album ‘Nobody’s Daughter’, before they split again in 2012.
Elsewhere, the singer is set to appear on 070 Shake’s track ‘Song To The Siren’, from his new album ‘Petrichor’, which is out on Friday (November 15).
She also recently recalled the time she had to “fake her way through” a lengthy chat about Muse with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.