"knows not" in a Nirvana song.

<<It sounds to me like "don't know" but on all the lyric websites it says "knows not." >>

Oftentimes, the lyric is written one way, but when the track is cut, the performer adlibs or sings it slightly different. Lyrics often state the "official" words--not the way the singer sung it--but the way the singer should have sung it but didn't.

They write the lyrics BEFORE they cut the track.

CORRECTION

because this is the English Forum

<<not the way the singer sung it>>

Should read

not the way the singer sang it

sorry :\

Here's a perfect example of a misprinted lyric that is all over the internet on every frickin' lyric site -- Mezzanine, by Massive Attack:

"We flew and strolled as two
Eliminated gently
Why don't you close your eyes and reinvent me?"

WTF? Eliminated? As in, took a shit? I had to listen to the song again. Dear god, tell me he isn't really saying "as two eliminated gently", 'cause that is a fucked-up mental picture! But hey, maybe he did, because MA has some odd lyrics. I dug out the CD, popped it in, and listened again to the actual song.

Sure enough, he says nothing of the kind:

"We flew and strolled as two,
ILLUMINATED gently"

Yeah. One little vowel sound, whole different image in my head: there is a big, big difference between "lit" and "shit". But SOMEBODY out there heard it wrong, and somebody walking past two people taking a dump is now what is being perpetrated all over the net. Why? Because everyone else ripped them off, mistake and all, and cut & pasted it on site after site after site. Incorrectly, of course, but do one of those sacred "google searches", you'll find all kinds of hits on "eliminated" vs "illuminated" and thus "prove" that that's the actual lyric. Yup, 743 for "eliminated", versus a whopping 2 for "illuminated".

See? Google hits prove nothing! You have to listen to the song.

People rush to post on a subject they don't know anything about. Travis "confirms" that "knows not" is from the King James Bible. Travis, have you ever even SEEN a copy of the KJV? I did a proximity search on the KJV online and there is not one instance of "knows not" in the whole King James Bible. But there are numerous instances of "knoweth not", eg:

Job 18:21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.

Why do people rush to spread disinformation? Why would the KJV use the modern ending -s instead of -th? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

The song you're all referring to is called "In Bloom." At different points in the song Kurt Cobain sings BOTH "knows not what it means" and "don't know what it means," although the former is heard more often.

You guys are so immature. You're 31 years old, 36 years old, etc. I'm only 19 and I'm shaking my head in disgust at you guys right now. Arguing and throwing F-bombs because of some song lyrics? Oy...

You have a problem with saying "fuck"? You might be in the wrong place, then.

Fuck is such an ordinary word. Prefer fancy words like ''screw'' :)

<<You guys are so immature. You're 31 years old, 36 years old, etc. I'm only 19 and I'm shaking my head in disgust at you guys right now. Arguing and throwing F-bombs because of some song lyrics? Oy... >>

Oh look. Miss Manners has shown up.

lol dont like the word fuck look up george carlin 7 words you cant say on TV

the use of "knows not" has famous Biblical connotations "forgive him for he knows not what he does" or some shit, and Kurt Cobain used to call himself "little lost Christ boy". Put those together and it might shed some light on the usage.

Besides, the Beatles sing in "Nowhere Man"

...Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to...

So maybe Kurt meant to say that he had come from nowhere. And went back.