Scentless Apprentice/Nirvana

Scentless Apprentice, from Nirvana's 1993 album In Utero, was inspired by the 1985 novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. Originally published in German, the story concerns a man who is born without body odor of any kind but with a heightened sense of smell (the song's lyrics say: Like most babies smell like butter/His smell smelled like no other/He was born scentless and senseless). Even as an infant, his lack of personal scent is disturbing to the people around him (Every wet nurse refused to feed him) and he becomes a misanthropic figure who finds his calling as a perfumer's apprentice. He sets out to create the perfect perfume, and in pursuit of that goal he murders several virginal women to capture their scent. Kurt Cobain had cited Perfume as one of his favorite books.

Submitted by Jake Byrne