Co-written and produced by the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, “Celebrity Skin” was Courtney Love’s way of addressing her transformation from tabloid train wreck to up-and-coming Hollywood A-lister. In “‘Celebrity Skin’ at 20: Hole, Hollywood and the Reinvention of Courtney Love,” Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos astutely likens the song to Britney Spears’ 2007 hit “Piece of Me.” “You want a part of me?” Love asks rhetorically in the song. “Well, I’m not selling cheap.”
The less-than-subtle lyrics have understandably been altered (with Love’s help, according to a Taco Bell press release) to fit the commercial. It is, after all, advertising the ways in which fiery taco sauce helps us “Live Más” as opposed to poking back at an antagonistic public. Subsequently, “I’m all I want to be: a walking study in demonology” has been changed to “I’m all I want to be. I walk in fire. You can’t get rid of me.” Fair enough. Demonology is, like, so 1998 anyway.
Even if you weren’t among the many music lovers who celebrated the song’s original release, it’s possible you’re familiar with it for a different reason. Notably, it plays over the end credits of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “Captain Marvel” and is the only song featured in the film to have debuted after the film is set, in 1995 (via Independent). Between the MCU and the Super Bowl, it’s safe to say this “Cinderella goes grunge” anthem is enjoying a serious revival as of late.