An Open Apology To Kurt Cobain.
There’s something I’ve carried with me a very long time, which I’m only now taking the moment to absolve in hopes of moving forward, even with the most pointless aspects of my life. As everyone probably knows, music is an incredibly large portion of my life; be it as an escape, a pain reliever, a stress antidote, or simply for the pleasure of hearing it. But early in my musical escapades, I grew to be opinionated in my musical preferences, and none of those preferences were greater than my distain for Kurt Cobain.
To be quite honest, as I look back at all the reasons I allegedly hated Cobain and the music he created while in Nirvana, they were seemingly valid reasons, but in the same respect, they were garbage. I remember my main valid argument for hating the music that “every song is basically the same.” When you’re 13 and first getting into music outside of your parents’ tastes, it seems like a very concrete statement, especially if you want to seem edgy or jaded. “I can’t like a band that only uses the same chord progression for every song, but with different words.” 5 years later, I feel like renting a time machine (which you can do at Ikea, you only have to assemble it yourself) to tell myself how full of shit I’d end up being 5 years down the line. Greenday, blink-182, Every country singer I’ve ever liked, and Elvis Presley all partook in doing this, and is in no way a reason to discredit a band.
Another reason I used to rag on Nirvana was because of the incoherency of Cobain’s singing. It took me a lot of time, and the wanting to do so, to pop in “Smells Like Teen Spirit lyrics” into Google, just to see what the hell was being said in that song… and you know what? It was just as much a jumble of garbage as I could have imagined. But then again, this brings to light the assumption that every song has to have a meaning behind it to be considered “great” or “good”. It’s not like Cobain was the first or last to write songs of nonsense: The Beatles had “I Am The Walrus”, Focus had “Hocus Pocus”, hell, Frank Zappa made a career around nonsense, as did Pearl Jam (before Backspacer.) And how many girls are running around singing Ale-Ale-jandro now ‘a days or these other teeny-bop songs that took a total of 12 minutes to write and record, all without any sort of anything backing it but a catchy hook. I’ll admit that some of my favorite songs from the 90’s were the Barenaked Ladies’s “One Week”, and Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”… you know, you grow.
And out of some diluted sense, I think Cobain’s death brought forth a misguided sense of hate all in its own. It was as if I believed that an entire demographic of people who loved Nirvana (and in turn, Kurt Cobain) were secretly all sympathizers who just felt bad that his time was cut short. I acted as if Kurt Cobain would have lived longer, or if Nirvana would have put out more albums past ’93, there wouldn’t be the same following as there is because of the demise of the band as a whole. In a way, that last part might be true, after the 90’s, things just got weird in the music scene, and now people are either hardcore into what they like, they like a plethora of things, or they think everything sucks since the downfall of the 8-track.
Yet, this is how hypocritical I was: I claimed to hate Nirvana, and made a living-joke out of a deceased Cobain, and yet… I still had “favorite” songs from the band. I had a few tunes, that even out of my initial hatred, shone through. Those songs I had liked back then are still some of my favorites, at least from Nirvana, today, like “Lithium” and “Come As You Are.” I’d originally claimed that the band did nothing but use the same chords over and over for their songs, yet these songs sounded nothing like the others… in fact, there were hardly any songs that sounded alike off of “Nevermind” (although songs from “Nevermind” do share similarities from songs off other albums.) At this point, I decided that perhaps “hate” was much too strong of a word.
This progressing feeling of hatred absolving continued over months, and eventually years, to a point where I felt terrible for ever saying things of such a terrible caliber. Of course there will be bands or genres which no matter what, you can’t tolerate; I for one still can’t stand Rap, and I’ll never understand what a Bieber is… but in the case of Nirvana, I took things too far, without enough to ever judge from. There are plenty of songs from Nirvana that I find myself liking, and yet still, there are a lot of songs I still can’t tolerate from them no matter what. But this is true with almost any band I like; There are 2 whole Boston albums I deny the existence of, I dislike almost every song from the Foo Fighters’ “The Colour And The Shape” album except a select couple, and I think the only blink-182 album to be released to the public should be their “Greatest Hits” compilation. So who am I to judge what band is good based only on the few songs I’d ever heard from them.
The one big turning point in my judgment came when I saw a DVD of Nirvana live, in what is said to be their most popular and loved performances of all time: Live at Reading. Kurt Cobain came out on stage in medical garb, being pushed in a wheelchair. He continued to play dressed like this, until finally the robe unraveled, and his usual stage wear was shown. There was a sense of no humility coming on stage wearing a medical gown, and the crowd was just as hysterical at the beginning of the show as they were near the end. The face of Cobain’s was one of fulfillment throughout the show, as if it was exactly what he felt he should be doing: a hidden-happiness, if you will. And even though Nirvana set themselves as a Grunge band, there’s a moment of comedy within the show (aside from the gown) where the three Nirvana band-mates haphazardly sing Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” chorus while their “Smells Like Teen Spirit” accompanies it by instrument. It’s clear they had no idea what the words to the song were, but it’d be speculated for very long that Nirvana “stole” the riff from Boston, so this was a very fun thing to see from both sides.
The end of “Nirvana: Live At Reading” deserves its own paragraph. First off, the end of the actual performance consists of Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl dismembering and destroying every piece of equipment they had on stage. Dave Grohl obliterated his drum set, and threw a dismembered Bass at it, while Krist and Cobain smashed guitars and toppled sound equipment. This is exactly what the crowd wanted… they didn’t want to go to a Nirvana concert and see them casually walk off stage like every other band: they wanted chaotic mayhem. They gave the thousands of cheering fans just what they wanted, a show of a life time, and that’s something no one can ever take away from these people, “that time we saw Nirvana.” They weren’t some selfish, money loving, consumer-whore band from Seattle... they were a band devoted to the show, like a dirty, destructive Queen.
Also at the end, after the credits have rolled and the bands destruction quiets into the black, there’s a clip of Cobain getting his attention grabbed by a father of this little boy, stuttering in his own amazement that he’s getting to meet Kurt Cobain. This little boy stammered in all his words, trying to express how much of an idol Cobain was to him, and what does Cobain do? While smoking a cigarette, as the rest of the band and crew walk on in impatience, he stands there, and signs this little boy’s birthday autograph. He shakes this British little boy’s hand, and tells him “Don’t smoke”, as he puffs away on his cigarette. That’s an idol, or at least what one should be. Somehow I don’t think the Chad Kroegers and Ke$has of the world these days couldn’t possibly have that same feeling and effect that this moment embodied, but that’s just my opinion.
There are quite a few things I take for granted in my haste as well. First off, is the ability for Cobain to actually tell a story with his songs, opposed to the generalization otherwise earlier. The song “Polly” for instance, while I joke about it due to it’s 8 drum notes throughout, is actually one of the most emotional songs Kurt has written. The song Polly was written about a true event, where a girl was kidnapped, tortured and raped, but managed to escape her captor by flirting with him and gaining his trust. Cobain couldn’t believe that a girl got out of such a situation like that, and wrote the song from his own heart-felt standpoint, yet unconventionally, the song was written from the rapists point-of-view. After the release of the song, Nirvana went on to play at Women’s Rights and Anti-Rape concerts, fitting with the release of “Polly.” I don’t mean for this to sound like a documentation of Nirvana, but this story in particular is one important to me, and especially with my humanizing of the previously thought inhuman Kurt Cobain.
Secondly: the death of Kurt Cobain. I’m shockingly ashamed of myself for talking about the death of Cobain in such a jesting manor. Sure when Heath Ledger or Brittany Murphy Over-Doses on drugs someone jokes about it, it becomes the norm, then we stop seeing them in movies and we move on with our lives, but if you’ve ever stopped to think about someone saying such things about you when you’re gone, it kind of stings. Death is nothing to be made light of, Cobain had a daughter, a wife, millions of adoring fans, and the world willing to align itself with his step, but that was taken away. If it was suicide, then the note he wrote to his imaginary friend, wife, and daughter is one of the most touching things to be written out of fear, regret, but a sense that things can’t be taken back anymore. If it was suicide, it means that pressure and persistence from fame overcame this person in a way that many of us could never fathom; then it was over. If it were murder, then it’s almost the same respect, except it means that someone else besides Cobain took him from life far too soon than many before him and many after. He was only 27; have any of you planned all your life and dreams to end before you’re 30? I wouldn’t assume so. It seems like a bitter shame, no matter who it is, to die at 27.
The suicide thing also hits me from another point: Boston. Perhaps not only Boston, but Boston’s lead singer, Brad Delp, in particular, also committed suicide. Three days before my 15th birthday, a singer I looked up to in almost every way took his life by means of carbon monoxide poisoning, leaving a note for his wife with nothing but the best things to say. Faron Young, who sings one of my favorite songs “Wine Me Up”, shot himself with a revolver at a late age, most likely due to his quickly diminishing health. Elvis Presley Over-Dosed on drugs and was later pronounced dead August 16th, 1977. The man in black, Johnny Cash, struggled with drugs for many years on and off within his life, though he lived to a tender age and passed at a reasonable time, without the use of drugs. Even going past singers, one of the biggest inspirations in my life, Chris Farely, had his life taken early as well due to an Over-Dose of drugs. Suicide and untimely death seem to be a recurring pattern for people I look up to.
Speaking of which, another thing Kurt Cobain brought into my life, yet I never attributed to him or found it necessary to hate him less for, is Dave Grohl. Dave Grohl is one of my biggest musical inspirations. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be trying to conquer as many musical instruments as I possibly can, in hopes of someday being just like him. Who knows where Grohl would be if he was never in Nirvana. He went from being a grunge drummer in Nirvana, to taking those roots with him for the first couple Foo Fighters albums, and then shifting focus eventually into a solid rock platform. Without Dave Grohl, I’d have a lot less favorite songs, and probably a lot less interest in music as a whole. So for this, due to the uncertainty of things that can’t be paradoxed, I’m grateful to Kurt Cobain for bringing my favorite musician into the limelight, and giving him the chance he needed to become something greater.
He’ll never read this, nor will he ever comprehend this message of hatred, understanding, and acceptance, but I’ve written this as an open apology to Kurt Cobain. To each person who reads this, I’m sure you’ll understand the solace I’ve found in my years of delusion and misguided haste. I never told Cobain I hated him, but even still, those years I spent distancing myself from Nirvana and talking down about the band for seemingly no reason feels like years wasted, and experiences never felt, until now. I’m not the biggest fan, and I’ll never be the most vocal, but I’ll always keep those songs I love to myself for as long as I live to remember them, just like all the others. I was too quick to judge, and quicker to throw anger and humility in the way of something that proved to be something more that I could’ve ever understood.
To Nirvana, the music it created and the fans who embody it’s existence all these years later, I’ve been foolish. But to you, Kurt Donald Cobain, I’m sorry. Your death came a year after my birth, but your existence has lived on and will until after my demise. I apologize for everything I’ve said out of turn, tongue-in-cheek, and anything else that’s been detrimental to your name. This is long overdue, so I’m sorry.
Sincerely,
Stephen James Vaux, esq.
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