‘Cut Me Some Slack’ was written and recorded by Paul McCartney and the surviving members of Nirvana.
We walked in; we jammed the song. It just came out of nowhere. The best songs happen that way. We recorded it live and put a vocal over it and that was it. It was three hours and it was perfect.
NME
The song was recorded in a three-hour jam session during the making of the Sound City documentary. The film, Dave Grohl’s directorial debut, was about Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, where Nirvana recorded Nevermind.
McCartney was invited to the jam session at the studio, which was filmed for the documentary. Also appearing on the recording were former Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, and their touring guitarist Pat Smear.
Dave asked me to come along for a jam with some mates. Dave suggested maybe doing something like ‘Long Tall Sally’ but I thought maybe we should just make something up.They were saying how good it felt to be back together. I said, ‘Whoa? You guys haven’t played together for all that time?’ Someone whispered to me, ‘That’s Nirvana’, I couldn’t believe it.
paulmccartney.com
McCartney played a Reso-Fiddle tenor cigar box guitar on ‘Cut Me Some Slack’. The instrument was given to him by Johnny Depp and made by Matty Baratto.
‘Cut Me Some Slack’ won a Grammy Award for best rock song on 26 January 2014. The soundtrack album Sound City: Real To Reel also won an award for best compilation soundtrack album.
Backstage at the #GRAMMYs! Watch now @CBS http://t.co/qaxLtGT7Gk with Paul McCartney @paulmccartney and Dave Grohl pic.twitter.com/Pck8JtTuZa
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) January 27, 2014
The release
‘Cut Me Some Slack’ was made available on streaming services on 14 December 2012.
The soundtrack album Sound City – Real To Reel was released on 12 March 2013, a month after the Sound City documentary went on general release.
Live performances
‘Cut Me Some Slack’ was first performed in public on 12 December 2012 at 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, 12 December 2012
The song was performed again by the quartet – nicknamed Sirvana by the press – on Saturday Night Live on 15 December 2012, and at McCartney’s concert in Seattle on 19 July 2013.
