"Violet" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by vocalist and guitarist Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. The song was written in mid-1991, and was performed live between 1991 and 1992 during Hole's earlier tours, eventually appearing as the opening track on the band's second studio album Live Through This (1994). The song was released as the group's seventh single and the third from that album in January 1995 after Kristen Pfaff's death in June 1994.

Courtney Love has stated several times that the song was written about her relationship with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan in 1990, and the lyrics speak from the point of view of an angry narrator who has abandoned a romance. The song also explores themes of sexual exploitation and self-abasement.

"Violet" peaked at number 29 on the Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks after the album's release in 1994, and is arguably one of Hole's most well-known and critically recognized songs. It charted at number 116 on The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born list by Blender magazine in 2005. The cover artwork for the single features a Victorian mourning portrait of a deceased young girl which was taken from the historical archives of Stanley B. Burns.

Love wrote "Violet" in the fall of 1991, during the band's Pretty on the Inside tour. Love stated that she finished the song in the band's tour van at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit, Michigan during the band's sound check. As Love recalled, "[It was] on Halloween... we were opening for the Laughing Hyenas, and there were 40 people there. [I had heard] five songs from Nevermind, and I was so jealous of those songs that I had to try to top them. I could not believe that somebody I knew, somebody from our underground, had written a batch of songs so fiercely great."

...
Wikipedia