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| Tuesday, November 14, 2006 |
| I'm Buried Up to My Neck in Contradictionary Flies |
 For the past few weeks now, I have been reading Heavier than Heaven a biography of Kurt Cobain by Richard Cross. I was a massive Nirvana fan in my youth. In fact, it was Nirvana that got me into the whole grunge scene in the first place. If it wasn't for Nirvana I would never have discovered Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc. I have all of their albums and both of their major boxsets (the only albums I haven't bought are Greatest Hits and Sliver - Best of the Box - mainly because I feel they contradict everything he stood for). I know it sounds a bit pathetic, but if it wasn't for Kurt I wouldn't have become the man I am today. He didn't directly influence my political thought as such, but he got me to open my eyes more to the world around me. Got me to think about questioning the world around me and questioning the whole notion of fitting in with the majority. For this I owe a great debt.
I don't very often talk about my love of Nirvana and Kurt on this blog, I do tend to focus on Pearl Jam, but I will never forget the inspiration provided by the music and his life. I always remember thinking that he was such a complex character, full of contradictions. I empathised with his anti-corporate side as well as his individuality. And yet, he pestered MTV to play his videos and craved to be accepted by people. I also empathised with his sensitive side. I always remember seeing a drawing he did once of some jock with a moustache and a beer in his hand, with his pregnant partner. As he made lots of jock-type comments about what a strong son he was going to have, a foot burst out of the womb and into the side of his face. A graphic image, but the point was not lost on me.
Despite my admiration for Kurt, I do look back with a mixture of sadness and anger. It saddens me greatly that he felt so desperate that he had to take his own life. It saddens me that he felt like he was alone. Even now, sometimes I feel like I could have helped him in some way, like he helped me. It saddens me that his daughter will never know her father. It also saddens me that I will never hear about a new album by Kurt, but this seems so unimportant in retrospect. I will never have that rush of excitement when they have a new release. But I also feel anger, particularly after reading this book. I feel anger that he could let himself be dragged into a world of drug abuse that destroyed him. How could he have allowed this to happen? How could he be so pathetic? How could he do this to himself? Why? Of course, I know the answers to these questions. Despite everything, he was human. He had troubles, he had faults, he was not perfect. Every hero has a flaw, every hero lets someone down somewhere, sometime. No-one is perfect. No-one is pure. These are the last lessons his life has taught me. Sometimes, these things are easy to forget. |
posted by korova @ 12:34 pm  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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I own this book as well, and have probably read it a couple times over the years. The only thing to remember is that Courtney is presented in a more positive light in this book because she was working very closely with the author during the writing, so a lot of events were put into a postive spin towards Courtney. No book is ever going to be accurate unless Kurt wrote one before he died and we don't know about it yet. That's why I like his journals so much, no filter or spin, just pure Kurt. Also, in this book, I didn't like the miniute-by-minute account of Kurt's last days, and especially his last day, no one coule know that stuff, or what happened, its all speculation. And there was also no talk of a homicide occuring, the author was suicide all the way, which in my opinion, is still up for discussion.
As for Kurt himself and his impact, he also had a huge impact on my life, more than any other artist. I can still remember vividly the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I was completely blown away, and bought the CD the next day. Kurt didn't change the way I thought about the world or society, Matthew Good did that for me. But what Kurt did do was make me look at music differently. My current love for music all started with Nirvana. Do I wish there was new Nirvana music still being made? Actually, I don't. I think it was prefect the way it was, and shouldn't be altered. Any new music would have diminished the older stuff and its historical value. They were brilliant while they lasted, it was a helleva ride while Kurt was around. :)
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Hey Wes - I agree, the book does paint a rather rosy picture of Courtney's influence on Kurt. At the time I had a very negative opinion of her, and you can tell that this book is twisting the truth a little. I also agree about the fictional account of his last moments. It is obviously nothing more than pure speculation. Having said that, when I read the last few pages, I had to stifle a tear and his end. It brought back all my memories of my youth when I followed them religiously and the shock I felt when I first heard about his death.
I guess he made me look at music differently as well. From the moment I first got into Nirvana, I realised that passion was the most important ingredient in any song. Consequently, I like to think that the passion shows thorugh in every band I like, whether it be Pearl Jam/Radiohead etc. I also loved him lyrically, it encouraged me to write poetry and I think he has been a massive influence on my writing style.
As for new stuff, I am very intrigued about the kind of stuff Kurt was going to do next. It was very likely that he would pursue a different course after In Utero. There was a lot of talk about working with Michael Stipe as well as developing his interest in folk music. It would have been interesting to see how he matured as an artist. I certainly think he had had enough of the 'Nirvana formula.'
My biggest regret is that I never got to see Nirvana play live. I was hoping to get tickets for their In Utero tour, but then fate intervened. On the upside, it has made me make the extra effort to see every band I love in case I never get the chance (although it is starting to look like I will never see Pearl Jam!). Oh well, whatever, nevermind.
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ha ha, "nevermind", brilliant. :)
Anyways, yeah, I will always regret not seeing them, but its not like I had the opportunity. I was only 14 when Kurt died, so I was only 12 when they became big, and they never came anywhere near me, so at 13 or 14 years old, I wasn't in a position to go traveling on my own. But because I was so young, the perfect age for getting into music, Nirvana influenced me so much. Had I been a little older or younger, it wouldn't have had such an impact.
I totally agree with the passion part. Kurt just had so much passion, it was screaming through the speakers, its hard not to have that change the way you look at music. to this day, I still compare artists passion for music to Kurt's. In my opinion, there are only a few artists out there now that even come close. And none of them reach the same level as Kurt.
As for new Nirvana music, the rumor is that Kurt wanted to get out of music, and that's what his "suicide" note was actually about, except of course for the last couple lines, which are the only ones that talk about suicide, and are written in different writing.......ok, I will just stop myself right there, I have read too many of those "who killed kurt cobain?" books, and I don't want to get into all the inconsistencies surrounding his "suicide". I will just say one thing on that topic, I just wish a proper investigation had been done. I just didn't like how it appeared to be an "obvious" suicide by another famous rockstar who was already suicidal, so no real investigation was done. Ok, that's enough of that. :)
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I own this book as well, and have probably read it a couple times over the years. The only thing to remember is that Courtney is presented in a more positive light in this book because she was working very closely with the author during the writing, so a lot of events were put into a postive spin towards Courtney. No book is ever going to be accurate unless Kurt wrote one before he died and we don't know about it yet. That's why I like his journals so much, no filter or spin, just pure Kurt. Also, in this book, I didn't like the miniute-by-minute account of Kurt's last days, and especially his last day, no one coule know that stuff, or what happened, its all speculation. And there was also no talk of a homicide occuring, the author was suicide all the way, which in my opinion, is still up for discussion.
As for Kurt himself and his impact, he also had a huge impact on my life, more than any other artist. I can still remember vividly the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I was completely blown away, and bought the CD the next day. Kurt didn't change the way I thought about the world or society, Matthew Good did that for me. But what Kurt did do was make me look at music differently. My current love for music all started with Nirvana. Do I wish there was new Nirvana music still being made? Actually, I don't. I think it was prefect the way it was, and shouldn't be altered. Any new music would have diminished the older stuff and its historical value. They were brilliant while they lasted, it was a helleva ride while Kurt was around. :)