riff played through the verse, building in intensity to the cascading passion of the chorus". Lyrics In the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Cobain told Azerrad that "Heart-Shaped Box" was written about children with cancer. "Every time I see documentaries about little kids with cancer I just freak out", he explained. "It affects me on the highest emotional level, more than anything else on television." As Azerrad noted, however, the song's lyrics were more likely about Love. Charles R. Cross, author of the 2001 Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, described the lyric, "I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black" as "what has to be the most convoluted route any songwriter undertook in pop history to say 'I love you'". Garr wrote that "while the song does reference [cancer], the lyrics appear more to address the physical and emotional dependencies inherent in relationships." Cobain's unused liner notes for In Utero, first described in Heavier Than Heaven and published in Journals the following year, featured an explanation for "Heart-Shaped Box" that "fell completely apart", according to Cross, "but touched on The Wizard of Oz, I Claudius, Leonardo da Vinci, male seahorses (who carry their young), racism in the Old West, and Camille Paglia". The song's title was inspired by the collection of heart-shaped candy boxes Love kept in the front room of the Fairfax apartment she and Cobain lived in. However, early versions of the song featured the word "coffin" rather than "box". According to Bailey, the song also featured the working title "New Complaint." In a 1993 interview with Circus, Cobain explained that the chorus lyrics "Hey/ Wait/ I've got a new complaint" were a reference to how he believed he was often perceived by the media. In 2012, Love wrote on Twitter that "Heart-Shaped Box" was about her vagina. Tweeting to the American musician Lana Del Rey, who had covered the song at a concert in Sydney, Australia, the previous week, Love wrote, "You do know the song is about my Vagina right? 'Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,' umm ... On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed." The tweets were deleted shortly after. Release "Heart-Shaped Box" was released as In Utero's first commercial single on August 30, 1993, on CD, cassette tape, and 7-inch, and 12-inch vinyl record