Courtney Love recently donated the original handwritten lyrics ‘Violet’ to a charity auction. The song came out on Hole’s 1994 album ‘Live Through This,’ written by Love in 1991 during a tour for their debut album.
Since Love dated The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan in those years, rumors claimed the said lyrics were about him, but the singer mentioned other inspirations behind them.
“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,” her recent statement to NME read.
“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 referred to her 1995 interview on ‘Later…with Jools Holland,’ where she said ‘Violet’ was about ‘a jerk, I hexed him and now he’s losing his hair.’
Courtney Love co-wrote the track with Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson. The lyrics first appeared on a flyer for one of the band’s shows in Los Angeles in August 1991.
The vocalist found the original pages while searching material for her memoir in an old notebook that had been returned to her by the police after it was recovered from a stolen locker.
Now, they are up for sale at the auction that will benefit Ellis Park, an animal sanctuary in Sumatra founded by Warren Ellis of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.