"Beautiful Son" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written collectively by frontwoman Courtney Love, lead guitarist Eric Erlandson and drummer Patty Schemel. The song was released as the band's fourth single in April 1993 on the European label City Slang. To coincide with the song's lyrics, Love used a photograph of her husband, Kurt Cobain, at age 7 as the single's artwork.

"Beautiful Son" is known to have been written as early as 1992, around the time of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain's marriage. Love stated that the song-writing process was an attempt to "be a little dumber" and that she "was always trying to write a very complex song without ever having learned to write an easy Beatles song. It just had a riff. It wasn't super smart but it sounded good and that's when I started learning things don't have to have lots and lots of notes. That the best songs are carried by simple lines and simple melodies."

The recording sessions for the "Beautiful Son" single took place between November 8 and 10, 1992 at Word Of Mouth Productions, formerly Reciprocal Recording where "Dicknail" had been mixed, in Seattle, Washington. The assigned producer was Jack Endino, who had recorded Nirvana's debut album Bleach (1989) at the same studio four years prior. Incidentally, Cobain was due to partake in the sessions, mainly taking on bass duties, however, seeing as he arrived only on the last day, he had no contribution to the session. Rumours circulated that the Nirvana song "Talk To Me" was recorded with Cobain, however, Hole later recorded a demo version at Hanzek Audio, a related recording studio, in August 1993, during the initial recording sessions for Hole's second studio album, Live Through This (1994). Contrary to popular belief, temporary bassist Leslie Hardy did not play bass at this session, nor was she even in the band at this time. Endino played bass on "Beautiful Son", and Love played bass on "20 Years in the Dakota". Endino described the atmosphere of the session as "quite negative" and that "it was really strange, cognitive dissonance." Love was noted as being civil towards Endino, however, constantly shouting at other band members, such as one instance when Eric Erlandson pointed out that the riff to "Beautiful Son" sounded "exactly" like Nirvana's hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Erlandson then tried to record it in a different style, but Love demanded "this is how it should sound." The band left before midnight on November 10. Before the band left, Endino recorded the bass parts to "Beautiful Son", then Love recorded the final bass track to "20 Years In The Dakota." "Between us we had the bass done in about a half-hour," noted Endino and finally mixed the three tracks as he was getting tired and "[didn't] want to stay [t]here 'till 6am mixing three songs."

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