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Nirvana ’s “Lithium” may have shared the emphatically shifting dynamics of “Come As You Are,” and the latent singalong infectiousness of   Nevermind ’s “ Smells Like Teen Spirit ,” but it stands distinct from the others in that it feels less of a perceptibly personal and agonized admission from its author. The context behind “Lithium” That’s not to say that Kurt Cobain did not invest himself in the lyrics – there is much to be deduced from the words within – but he did repeatedly indicate that the story of “Lithium” was a fictional one. “The story is about a guy who lost his girlfriend,” he once explained. “I can’t decide what caused her to die – let’s say she died of AIDS or a car accident or something – and he’s going around brooding and he turned to religion as a last resort to keep himself alive, to keep him from suicide.” While Kurt would concede that the song infused some of his own experiences, “like breaking up with girlfriends and having bad relationships,” there is the be...