Ode to Kurt Cobain

This is an attempt at a somewhat more complete biography of Kurt Cobain. Of course, no amount of writing can describe the complex, angst-ridden character better than his music. This is (and probably always will be) a work in progress. I will be adding things here and there as I remember or read more. Please treat this as such. So, all right, then... here goes...

"There's definitely some pieces in there that reflect on my personal life, but really, they aren't as personal as everybody thinks they are. I would like them to be more personal. The emotions, the songs themselves are personal. I can't do it - I've tried to write personally and it just doesn't seem to work. It would be too obvious. Some things that you could read in could fit into anyone's life that had any amount of pain at all. It's pretty cliche."

Beginnings
Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20, 1967 in Aberdeen, WA, about an hour or two southwest of Seattle. His parents were blue-collar workers - his father, Don, was an auto mechanic, his mother, Wendy, was a waitress; the family lived in nearby Hoquiam, WA. Hard times forced the family to move to Aberdeen, WA in 1969. Aberdeen ran by its logging industry. Unfortunately, it was also a dying town - in the late 60s and early 70s, the industry was dying out in Aberdeen and the once-prosperous town was drying up. Aberdeen lay in one of the few counties in Washington that were declining in population. It is somewhat appropriate in retrospect that Aberdeen was the town Cobain was born in - for nearly three-quarters of his life, he would see nothing else of the world. Kurt Cobain literally put Aberdeen on the map.

"Aberdeen was nothing but rednecks and guns and booze."
Kurt's father was 21 when he was born; his mother was 19. Don Cobain worked for Chevron and he lived in a fading town where money was tight. Wendy Cobain spent the entire day taking care of her baby. He was 3 years old when his sister Kimberley was born. All in all, it was a good childhood for young Kurt. He was a good student, artistically-inclined and well-liked.

Changes
Life would change dramatically for Kurt when he was 7. Don and Wendy would divorce and Kurt simply could not understand why. In his heart of hearts, Kurt hoped that one day his parents would get back together - but they never did. Don Cobain certainly wanted to, but Wendy was never interested. An anguished Kurt asked his father to promise he would never marry again and Don promised. Despite this, Don became interested in and married someone. Kurt never forgave his father for this cardinal sin - he had lied to him.

As time would go on, Kurt would become increasingly anti-social. He was constantly on a twisting carousel that took him from one relative's house to another's. At age 11, Cobain and his best friend Krist Novoselic would hear the Sex Pistols for the first time. Immediately, the two would fall in love with punk music. Punk was the one saving grace in Cobain's life at the time. By the time he hit high school, he was worse than ever. He was caught spray-painting "QUEER" on some jock's pick-up truck. In the end, he dropped out of high school altogether. It was around this time that Kurt would later claim he lived under a bridge in Aberdeen. This story is completely false - there is no way anyone could have lived under that bridge. His own words may help explain why he made the story up:

"I really haven't had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I'd rather tell a story about somebody else."

Olympia
In 1985, Kurt worked at one of his only "real" jobs - as a lifeguard in the local YMCA. It was also around this time that the first signs of his narcolepsy and bipolar disorder became noticable, though nobody thought much of them. 1985 was also the year Kurt decided he was done with Aberdeen - he and Krist would move to the thriving music scene in Olympia and form a band. Krist and Kurt were the only two stable members of the band they eventually christened Nirvana (after abandoning such gems as Tededfred, Stiff Woodies, Throat Oysters, and Bliss). They recorded the 1986 Fecal Matter demo tape and passed it around Olympia. By 1988, Nirvana recorded their debut album on Sub Pop records, Bleach.

The name fit in more ways than many imagined. Bleach is the substance used to clean off used needles when injecting heroin into the bloodstream. (This will also help explain some lyrics in "Come as You Are".) Drugs would begin to play an increasingly important role in Kurt's life. In 1991, Nirvana - now with drummer Dave Grohl - was sought out by Geffen Records and signed with a mainstream record company. This flew in the face of everything Kurt believed in.

Punk
At the time, Kurt was in a community where the punk ethos as used as a banner to "fight the man". Earlier, Kurt was seeing Tobi Vail, the drummer of the band Bikini Kill. She was critical in his view of punk music, pretty much single-handedly forming his opinions for him. She was so domineering, in fact, that Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill's lead singer, would say, "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit", a women's deodorant that Vail wore. Years later, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would go on to be Nirvana's most famous song. Much like the story of Green Day (if you happen to know it), Nirvana - and Kurt - were considered to have stepped across a line that labelled them "sellouts". The intrinsic struggle inside Kurt with the decision - music for the sake of music or music for the sake of money - spiralled him into further drug use.

"Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock."
In late 1991, Nirvana released Nevermind, the album that would change the music world - and Cobain - forever. It was an instant hit. At the time of production, Kurt was seeing Courtney Love. By early 1992, Kurt and Courtney would be married. With a tremendously successful record, fueled by MTV's love affair with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", life couldn't be better. Or so many thought.

Success
"My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years."
Kurt hated his success. He hated the commercialization of his music. Case in point, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a song about the uncaring, shallow youth of Kurt's generation. To a man who felt so deeply about his lyrics, what bigger blow could there be when that song becomes part of pop music, embraced by the very people it pokes fun at? He would go on to say about In Utero:

"I should just rerecord this record and do the same thing we did last year because we sold out last year - there's no reason to try to redeem ourselves as artists at this point. I can't help myself - I'm just putting out a record that I would like to listen to at home. I never listen to Nevermind. I haven't listened to it since we put it out. That says something. I can't stand that kind of production and I don't listen to bands that have that kind of production, no matter how good their songs are. It just bothers me."
The Downward Spiral (with all due apologies to Trent Reznor)

Even the birth of Frances Bean Cobain would not pull Kurt out of his downward spiral. Kurt was simply incapable of handling his own success - it wasn't part of any equation he had ever seen or contemplated. Kurt was even more disturbed by what he considered the misinterpretations of his lyrics. When he found out that "Polly", a strongly anti-rape song was sung by two men as they raped a little girl, he lashed out in the liner notes of Incesticide:

"If any of you don't like gays or women or blacks, please leave us the fuck alone."
Despite the later successes of 1992's Incesticide and 1993's In Utero (called Kurt's best songwriting to date), Cobain grew worse. He became a heroin addict. In a famous appearance on SNL, the band members found Kurt had nearly OD'ed and killed himself. The producers were worried if he could perform or not - as it turns out, the band DID perform, and if you go back and look at the performance, you will see the haunted, stoned mask that Cobain is wearing. (The performance is on several "Best Of SNL" tapes, from what I hear.)

In addition to his inability to handle being an icon to the very people he despised, Cobain's marriage was on shaky ground. His later, emotionally-intense songs like "All Apologies" and the beautiful "Heart-Shaped Box" would point it out as clearly as anything. Kurt's music always reflected where he was in life.

On March 4, 1994, in the middle of Nirvana's '93-'94 European tour, Kurt was rushed to a hospital. He had attempted to overdose and commit suicide, consuming 50 painkillers washed down with champagne. The band and the touring company called it an accident and not even close friends and family were notified.

"At the end of the last couple of months when I was doing $400 worth every day, I was definitely noticing things about my memory and I knew that eventually my health would start getting a lot worse. It sounds like I don't regret it and I don't, but that's because I used it as a tool. I used it as a medication to get rid of a pain. And that's the biggest reason why I did it. In that sense, I don't regret it, but anybody else who's going to get addicted to drugs are obviously going to fuck up their lives eventually. If it doesn't take a year, it will be next year. I've seen it happen with every person that gets strung out. Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up."

The End
Several days later, Kurt was back in Seattle. Courtney convinced him to join the detox program in Los Angeles. A few days later, she filed a missing person's report pretending to be his mother. Kurt had run away.

On April 5, just over a month after his initial suicide attempt, Kurt was spotted in Seattle with a shotgun. This didn't set off any bells because Kurt was a known gun aficionado.

Later, an electrician came to his house to install a security system. When no one answered the door, he looked in the window and saw what he thought was a mannequin on the floor. Then, he noticed the small splash of blood near the "mannequin's" ear. When police came, they found Kurt Cobain, 27, dead of a shotgun blast to his chin and a suicide note on a counter next to him.

To Boddah:

Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complain-ee. This note should be pretty easy to understand.

All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community had proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things.

For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begin, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you. It simply isn't fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I'm having 100% fun.

Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage. I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do, God, believe me I do, but it's not enough). I appreciate the fact that I and we have affected and entertained a lot of people. It must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're gone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

On our last 3 tours, I've had a much better appreciation for all the people I've known personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There's good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. The sad little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man. Why don't you just enjoy it? I don't know!

I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function. I can't stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I've become.

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy. Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much, I guess.

Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Peace, love, empathy,

Kurt Cobain

Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your altar.
Please keep going Courtney, for Frances.
For her life, which will be so much happier without me.

I love you, I love you!
After