"Wanting To Be Someone Else Is A Waste Of The Person You Are"
Who Is Kurt Cobain?
Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician and artist, best known as the lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of the grunge band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene, having its debut album Bleach released on the independent record label Sub Pop in 1989.
After signing with major label DGC Records, the band found breakthrough success with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from its second album Nevermind (1991). Following the success of Nevermind, Nirvana was labeled "the flagship band" of Generation X, and Cobain hailed as "the spokesman of a generation". Cobain, however, was often uncomfortable and frustrated, believing his message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, with his personal issues often subject to media attention. He challenged Nirvana's audience with its final studio album In Utero (1993). It did not match the sales figures of Nevermind but was still a critical and commercial success.
During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with heroin addiction, illness and depression. He also had difficulty coping with his fame and public image, and the professional and lifelong personal pressures surrounding himself and his wife, musician Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The circumstances of his death at age 27 have become a topic of public fascination and debate. Since their debut, Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, has sold over 25 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide.
Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20, 1967, at Grays Harbor Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington, to a waitress, Wendy Elizabeth (née Fradenburg) (born 1948), and an automotive mechanic, Donald Leland Cobain (born 1946). His parents were married on July 31, 1965 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. His ancestry included Irish, English, Scottish, and German. Cobain's Irish ancestors migrated from County Tyrone of Northern Ireland in 1875. Researchers have found them to have been shoemakers, originally named Cobane, who came from the village of Inishatieve near Pomeroy, settling in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, and then in Washington. Cobain himself believed his family came from County Cork in southern Ireland. Cobain had one younger sister named Kimberly, born on April 24, 1970.
Cobain's family had a musical background. His maternal uncle Chuck Fradenburg starred in a band called The Beachcombers, his Aunt Mari Earle played guitar and performed in bands throughout Grays Harbor County, and his great-uncle Delbert had a career as an Irish tenor, making an appearance in the 1930 film King of Jazz. Cobain was described as being a happy and excitable, while sensitive and caring child. His talent as an artist was evident from an early age. His bedroom was described as having taken on the appearance of an art studio, where he would accurately draw his favorite characters from films and cartoons such as Aquaman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Disney characters like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Pluto. This enthusiasm was encouraged by his grandmother Iris Cobain, who was a professional artist herself. Cobain began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, he began singing at two years old. At age four, Cobain started playing the piano and
singing, writing a song about their trip to a local park. He listened to artists like the Ramones and Electric Light Orchestra and would sing songs like Arlo Guthrie's "Motorcycle Song," The Beatles' "Hey Jude", Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun" and the theme song to The Monkees television show at a young age.
When Cobain was seven years old, his parents divorced. Later in his life, he said the divorce had a profound effect on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically; Cobain became defiant and withdrawn. In a 1993 interview, he elaborated:
"I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn't face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that."
Cobain's parents both found new partners after the divorce. His father had promised not to remarry; however, after meeting Jenny Westeby, he did, to Kurt's dismay. Kurt, his father, Westeby, and her two children Mindy and James, moved into a new household together. Cobain liked Westeby at first, who gave him the maternal attention he desired. In January 1979, Westeby gave birth to a boy, Chad Cobain. This new family, which Cobain insisted was not his real one, was in stark contrast to the attention Cobain was used to receiving as an only boy; he soon began to express resentment toward his stepmother. Kurt's mother began dating a man who was abusive. Cobain witnessed the domestic violence inflicted upon her, with one incident resulting in her being hospitalized with a broken arm. Wendy steadfastly refused to press charges, remaining completely committed to the relationship.
Kurt behaved insolently toward adults. He began bullying another boy at school. These behaviors eventually caused his father and Westeby to take him to a therapist, who concluded that Kurt would benefit in a single family environment. Both sides of the family attempted to bring his parents back together, but to no avail. On June 28, 1979, Cobain's mother granted full custody of Kurt to his father.
Cobain's teenage rebellion quickly became overwhelming for his father, who placed Kurt in the care of family and friends. While living with the born-again Christian family of his friend Jesse Reed, Cobain became a devout Christian and regularly attended church services. Cobain later renounced Christianity, engaging in what would be described as "anti-God" rants. The song "Lithium" is about his experience while living with the Reed family. Religion would remain an important part of Cobain's personal life and beliefs, as he often used Christian imagery in his work and maintained a constant interest in Jainism and Buddhist philosophy. The band name Nirvana was taken from the Buddhist concept, which Cobain described as "freedom from pain, suffering and the external world," which paralleled with the punk rock ethic and ideology. Cobain would regard himself as both a Buddhist and a Jain during different points of his life, educating himself about the philosophies through various sources, including through watching late night television documentaries on both subjects.
Although not interested in sports, Kurt was enrolled in a junior high school wrestling team at the insistence of his father. Kurt was a skilled wrestler, yet despised the experience. Because of the ridicule he endured from his teammates and coach, he allowed himself to be pinned, in an attempt to sadden his father. Later, his father enlisted him in a little league baseball team, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid playing on the team.
Cobain befriended a homosexual student at school, and suffered bullying from heterosexual students who concluded that Cobain was gay. In an interview he said that he liked having the identity of being gay because he did not like people and when they thought he was gay they left him alone. Kurt stated, "I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn't". His friend tried to kiss him and Kurt backed away and told his friend he was not gay but would still be friends with him. In a 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he was "gay in spirit" and "probably could be bisexual." He also stated that he used to spray paint "God Is Gay" on pickup trucks in the Aberdeen area. Aberdeen police records show that Cobain was arrested for spray painting the phrase "Ain't got no how watchamacallit" on other vehicles. One of his personal journals states, "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes."
Cobain enjoyed creating works of art. He would often draw during school classes, including objects associated with human anatomy. When given a caricature assignment for an art course, Cobain drew a posing Michael Jackson. When his art teacher told him the caricature would be inappropriate to be displayed in a school hallway, Cobain drew an unflattering sketch of then-President Ronald Reagan.
As attested to by several of Cobain's classmates and family members, the first concert he attended was Sammy Hagar and Quarterflash at the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1983. Cobain, however, claimed that the first concert he attended was the Melvins; he wrote prolifically in his Journals of the experience. As a teenager living in Montesano, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Cobain soon began frequenting the practice space of fellow Montesano musicians the Melvins.
During his second year in high school, Cobain began living with his mother in Aberdeen. Two weeks prior to graduation, he dropped out of Aberdeen High School upon realizing he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: find employment or leave. After one week, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Feeling banished from his own mother's home, Cobain stayed with friends, occasionally sneaking back into his mother's basement. Cobain also claimed during periods of homelessness to have lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way". However, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic said, "He hung out there, but you couldn't live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism."
In late 1986 Cobain moved into an apartment, paying his rent by working at a Polynesian coastal resort approximately 20 miles (32 km) north of Aberdeen. During this period, he was traveling frequently to Olympia, Washington to go to rock concerts. During his visits to Olympia, Cobain formed a relationship with Tracy Marander. The couple had a close relationship, but one that was often strained with financial difficulties and Cobain's absence when touring. Marander supported the couple by working at the cafeteria of the Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, often stealing food. Cobain spent most of his time sleeping into the late evening, watching television and concentrating on art projects. Marander's insistence that he get a job caused arguments that influenced Cobain to write "About a Girl", which was featured on the Nirvana album Bleach. Marander is credited with having taken the cover photo for the album. Marander was not aware that "About a Girl" was written about her until years after Cobain's death.
Soon after Marander separated from him, Cobain began dating Tobi Vail, an influential DIY punk zinester of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill. After meeting Vail, Cobain vomited as he was so completely overwhelmed with anxiety regarding his infatuation with her. This event would inspire the lyric: "Love you so much it makes me sick," which would appear in the song "Aneurysm". While Cobain would regard Vail as his female counterpart, his relationship with her waned. Cobain desired the maternal comfort of a traditional relationship, which Vail regarded as sexist within a countercultural punk rock community. Those who dated Vail would be described by her friend Alice Wheeler as "fashion accessories." Kurt and Tobi spent most of their time together as a couple discussing political and philosophical issues. In 1990 they collaborated on a musical project called "Bathtub Is Real", in which both Vail and Cobain sang, played guitar and drums. They recorded their songs on a four-track tape machine that belonged to Vail's father. In Everett True's 2009 book "Nirvana: The Biography" Vail is quoted as saying "(Kurt) would play the songs he was writing, I would play the songs I was writing and we'd record them on my dad's four-track. Sometimes I'd sing on the songs he was writing and play drums on them..... He was really into the fact that I was creative and into music. I don't think he'd ever played music with a girl before. He was super-inspiring and fun to play with." Slim Moon described their sound as "… like the minimal quiet pop songs that Olympia is known for. Both of them sang; it was really good." Cobain's relationship with Vail would inspire the lyrical content of many of the songs on Nevermind. Once, while discussing anarchism and punk rock with friend Kathleen Hanna, Hanna spray-painted "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Kurt's apartment wall. Teen Spirit was the name of a deodorant Vail wore; Hanna joked that Cobain smelled like it. Cobain, unaware of this, initially interpreted the slogan as having a revolutionary meaning. The slogan inspired the title to the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
On his 14th birthday on February 20, 1981, Cobain's uncle offered him either a bike or a used guitar. He chose the guitar. Soon, he was mastering Led Zeppelin's power ballad "Stairway to Heaven". Cobain began learning guitar with a few covers, including "Louie Louie", The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl", and soon began working on his own songs. During high school, Cobain rarely found anyone with whom he could play music. While hanging out at the Melvins' practice space, he met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon. Cobain and Novoselic would occasionally practice in the upstairs room of the salon. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of asking, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.
Cobain was disenchanted after early touring, due to the band's inability to draw substantial crowds and the apparent difficulty in sustaining themselves. During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain were hosts to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, leading the band to find a new drummer, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.
With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana's second album Nevermind (1991), Nirvana entered the mainstream, popularizing a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. Since their debut, Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, have sold over 25 million albums in the United States alone, and over 75 million worldwide.
The success of Nevermind provided numerous Seattle bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden access to wider audiences, and as a result, alternative rock became a dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States during the early-to-middle 1990s. Nirvana was considered the "flagship band of Generation X", and frontman Cobain found himself reluctantly anointed by the media as the generation's "spokesman." Cobain's discomfort with the media attention prompted him to focus on the band's music and, believing their message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, challenged the band's audience with its third studio album In Utero (1993).
Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana to his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer. He began to harbor resentments for people who claimed to be fans of the band yet refused to acknowledge, or misinterpreted, the band's social and political views. A vocal opponent of sexism, racism and homophobia, he was publicly proud that Nirvana had played at a gay rights benefit supporting No-on-Nine in Oregon in 1992, in opposition to Ballot Measure Nine, a ballot measure, that if passed, would have prohibited schools in the state from acknowledging or positively accepting LGBT rights and welfare.
Cobain was a vocal supporter of the pro-choice movement, and had been involved in Rock for Choice from the campaign inception by L7. He received death threats from a small number of anti-abortion activists for doing so, with one activist threatening Cobain that he would be shot as soon as he stepped on stage.
The Beatles were an early and lasting influence on Cobain; his aunt Mari remembers him singing "Hey Jude" at the age of two. "My aunts would give me Beatles records," Cobain told Jon Savage in 1993, "so for the most part I listened to the Beatles as a child, and if I was lucky, I'd be able to buy a single." Cobain expressed a particular fondness for John Lennon, whom he called his "idol" in his posthumously-released journals, and he admitted that he wrote the song "About a Girl," from Nirvana 1989 debut album Bleach, after spending three hours listening to Meet The Beatles!.
Cobain was also a fan of 70's hard rock and heavy metal bands, including Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Queen, and Kiss. Nirvana occasionally played cover songs by these bands, including Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", "Dazed and Confused" and "Heartbreaker", Black Sabbath's "Hand of Doom," and Kiss' "Do You Love Me?", and wrote the Incesticide song "Aero Zeppelin" as a tribute to Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith.
Punk rock proved to be a profound influence on a teenaged Cobain's attitude and artistic style. His first punk rock album was Sandinista! by The Clash, but he became a bigger fan of a fellow 1970s British punk band the Sex Pistols, describing them as "one million times more important than the Clash" in his journals. He was introduced to 1980s American hardcore bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, Millions of Dead Cops and Flipper by Buzz Osbourne, lead singer and guitarist of the Melvins and fellow Aberdeen, Washington native. Osborne taught Cobain about Punk by loaning him records and old copies of the Detroit based magazine Creem. The Melvins themselves were an important early musical influence on Cobain, with their heavy, grungy sound mimicked by Nirvana on many songs from Bleach.
Cobain was also a fan of protopunk acts like the Stooges, whose 1973 album Raw Power he listed as his favorite of all time in his journals, and The Velvet Underground, whose 1968 song "Here She Comes Now" the band covered both live and in the studio.
The 1980s American alternative rock band Pixies were instrumental in helping an adult Cobain develop his own songwriting style. In a 1992 interview with Melody Maker, Cobain said that hearing their 1988 debut album, Surfer Rosa, "convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the Iggy Pop/Aerosmith–type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind. In a 1993 interview with Rolling Stone, he said that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was his attempt at "trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."
Cobain's appreciation of early alternative rock bands also extended to Sonic Youth and R.E.M., both of which the members of Nirvana befriended and looked up to for advice. It was under recommendation from Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon that Nirvana signed to DGC in 1990, and both bands did a two-week tour of Europe in the summer of 1991, as documented in the 1992 documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. In 1993, Cobain said of R.E.M.: "If I could write just a couple of songs as good as what they've written ... I don't know how that band does what they do. God, they're the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
After attaining mainstream success, Cobain became a devoted champion of lesser known indie bands, covering songs by the Vaselines, Meat Puppets, Wipers and Fang onstage and/ or in the studio, wearing Daniel Johnston T-shirts during photo shoots, having the K Records logo tattooed on his forearm, and enlisting bands like Butthole Surfers, Shonen Knife, Chokebore and Half Japanese along for the In Utero tour in late 1993 and early 1994. Cobain even invited his favorite musicians to perform with him: ex-Germs guitarist Pat Smear joined the band in 1993, and the Meat Puppets appeared onstage during Nirvana's 1993 MTV Unplugged appearance to perform three songs from their second album, Meat Puppets II.
Nirvana's Unplugged set also included renditions of "The Man Who Sold the World," by British rock musician David Bowie, and the American folk song, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," as adapted by the American folk musician, Lead Belly. Cobain introduced the latter by calling Lead Belly his favorite performer, and in a 1993 interview revealed he had been introduced to him from reading the American author, William S. Burroughs. "I remember Burroughs saying in an interview, "These new rock'n'roll kids should just throw away their guitars and listen to something with real soul, like Leadbelly,'" Cobain said. "I'd never heard about Leadbelly before so I bought a couple of records, and now he turns out to be my absolute favorite of all time in music. I absolutely love it more than any rock'n'roll I ever heard."
Nirvana's acoustic Unplugged set, which was released posthumously as an album in 1994, may have provided a hint of Cobain's future musical direction. The record has drawn comparisons to R.E.M.'s 1992 release, Automatic for the People, and in 1993, Cobain himself predicted that the next Nirvana album would be "pretty ethereal, acoustic, like R.E.M.'s last album."
"Yeah, he talked a lot about what direction he was heading in," Cobain's friend, R.E.M.'s lead singer Michael Stipe, told Newsweek in 1994. "I mean, I know what the next Nirvana recording was going to sound like. It was going to be very quiet and acoustic, with lots of stringed instruments. It was going to be an amazing fucking record, and I'm a little bit angry at him for killing himself. He and I were going to record a trial run of the album, a demo tape. It was all set up. He had a plane ticket. He had a car picking him up. And at the last minute he called and said, 'I can't come.' Stipe was chosen as the godfather of Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain."
Dave Grohl stated that Cobain believed that music comes first and lyrics, second. Cobain focused, foremost, on the melodies of his songs. Cobain complained when fans and rock journalists attempted to decipher his singing and extract meaning from his lyrics, writing "Why in the hell do journalists insist on coming up with a second-rate Freudian evaluation of my lyrics, when 90 percent of the time they've transcribed them incorrectly?" While Cobain would insist on the subjectivity and unimportance of his lyrics, he was known to labor and procrastinate in writing them, often changing the content and order of lyrics during performances. Cobain would describe his lyrics himself as "a big pile of contradictions. They're split down the middle between very sincere opinions that I have and sarcastic opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopeful, humorous rebuttals toward cliché bohemian ideals that have been exhausted for years."
Cobain originally wanted Nevermind to be divided into two sides: a "Boy" side, for the songs written about the experiences of his early life and childhood, and a "Girl" side, for the songs written about his dysfunctional relationship with Tobi Vail. Charles R. Cross would write "In the four months following their break-up, Kurt would write a half dozen of his most memorable songs, all of them about Tobi Vail". Though "Lithium" had been written before Cobain knew Vail, the lyrics of the song were changed to reference her. Cobain would say in an interview with Musician that "some of my very personal experiences, like breaking up with girlfriends and having bad relationships, feeling that death void that the person in the song is feeling. Very lonely, sick." While Cobain would regard In Utero "for the most part very impersonal", on the album he dealt with the childhood divorce of his parents, his newfound fame and the public image and perception of himself and Courtney Love on "Serve the Servants
", with his enamored relationship with Love conveyed through lyrical themes of pregnancy and the female anatomy on "Heart-Shaped Box". Cobain wrote "Rape Me" not only as an objective discussion of rape, but a metaphorical protest against his treatment by the media. He wrote about fame, drug addiction and abortion on "Pennyroyal Tea", as well as women's rights and the life of Seattle-born Frances Farmer on "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle".
Cobain was affected enough to write the song "Polly" from Nevermind, after reading a newspaper story of an incident in 1987, where a 14-year old girl was kidnapped after attending a punk rock show then raped and tortured with a blowtorch. She managed to escape after gaining the trust of her captor, Gerald Arthur Friend through flirting with him. After seeing Nirvana perform, Bob Dylan would cite "Polly" as the best of Nirvana's songs, and was quoted as saying about Cobain, "the kid has heart". Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer inspired Cobain to write the song "Scentless Apprentice" from In Utero. The book is an historical horror novel about a perfumer's apprentice born with no body odor of his own but with a highly developed sense of smell, and who attempts to create the "ultimate perfume" by killing virginal women and taking their scent.
Cobain immersed himself in artistic projects throughout his life, as much so as he did in songwriting. The sentiments of his art work followed the same subjects of his lyrics, often expressed through a dark and macabre sense of humor. Noted was his fascination with physiology, his own rare medical conditions, and the human anatomy. Often unable to afford artistic resources, Cobain would improvise with materials, painting on board games and album sleeves, and painting with an array of substances, including his own bodily fluids. The artwork seen in his Journals would later draw acclaim as being of a high artistic standard. Many of Cobain's paintings, collages, and sculptures would appear in the artwork of Nirvana's albums. His artistic concepts would feature notably in Nirvana's music videos; the production and direction of which were acrimonious due to the artistic perfectionism of his visions.
Cobain would contribute backing guitar for a spoken word recording of beat poet William S. Burroughs' entitled "the "Priest" they called him". Cobain regarded Burroughs as a hero. During Nirvana's European tour Cobain kept a copy of Burroughs' Naked Lunch, purchased in a London bookstall.
Courtney Love and Cobain met on January 12, 1990, in Portland's Satyricon nightclub, when they both still led ardent underground rock bands. Love made advances, but Cobain was evasive. Early in their interactions, Cobain broke off dates and ignored Love's advances because he was unsure if he wanted a relationship. Cobain noted, "I was determined to be a bachelor for a few months. But I knew that I liked Courtney so much right away that it was a really hard struggle to stay away from her for so many months." Courtney Love first saw Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; they talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him.
Cobain was already aware of Love through her role in the 1987 film Straight to Hell. According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7 and Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991. In the weeks that followed, after learning from Dave Grohl that Cobain shared mutual interests with her, Love began pursuing Cobain. In late 1991 the two were often together and bonded through drug use.
Around the time of Nirvana's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, Love discovered that she was pregnant with Cobain's child. On February 24, 1992, a few days after the conclusion of Nirvana's Pacific Rim tour, Cobain and Love were married on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Love wore a satin and lace dress once owned by the actress Frances Farmer, and Cobain wore green pajamas, because he had been "too lazy to put on a tux". In an interview with The Guardian, Love revealed the opposition to their marriage from various people: "Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth sits me down and says, 'If you marry him your life is not going to happen, it will destroy your life.' But I said, 'Whatever! I love him, and I want to be with him!'... It wasn't his fault. He wasn't trying to do that."
In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair, Love admitted to using heroin, not knowing that she was pregnant. Love claimed that Vanity Fair had misquoted her, but the event created a media controversy for the couple. While Cobain and Love's romance had always been a media attraction, they found themselves hounded by tabloid reporters after the article was published, many wanting to know if Frances was addicted to drugs at birth. The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple's drug usage made them unfit parents. Two-week-old Frances was ordered by the judge to be taken from their custody and placed with Courtney's sister Jamie for several weeks, after which the couple obtained custody in an exchange agreement to submit to urine tests and regular visits from a social worker. After months of legal wrangling, the couple were eventually granted full custody of their daughter.
Throughout most of his life, Cobain suffered from chronic bronchitis and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition. His first drug experience was with marijuana in 1980, at age 13. He regularly used the drug during adulthood. Cobain also had a period of consuming "notable" amounts of LSD, as observed by Tracy Marander, and was "really into getting fucked up: drugs, acid, any kind of drug", observed Krist Novoselic; Cobain was also prone to alcoholism and solvent abuse. Cobain's cousin Beverly, a nurse, claimed Cobain was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as a child, and bipolar disorder as an adult. She also brought attention to the history of suicide, mental illness and alcoholism in the Cobain family, noting two of her uncles who had committed suicide with guns.
Cobain's first experience with heroin occurred sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer in Tacoma, Washington who had previously supplied him with Percodan. He used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use developed into a full-fledged addiction. Cobain claimed that he was "determined to get a habit" as a way to self-medicate his stomach condition. "It started with three days in a row of doing heroin and I don't have a stomach pain. That was such a relief," he related.
His heroin use began to affect the band's Nevermind supporting tour. One such example came the day of the band's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, where Nirvana had a photographic session with photographer Michael Levine. Having taken heroin beforehand, Cobain fell asleep several times during the shoot. Cobain divulged to biographer Michael Azerrad, "I mean, what are they supposed to do? They're not going to be able to tell me to stop. So I really didn't care. Obviously to them it was like practicing witchcraft or something. They didn't know anything about it so they thought that any second, I was going to die."
Slowly, Cobain's heroin addiction worsened. His first attempt at rehab was made in early 1992, not long after he and Love discovered they were going to become parents. Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing pale and gaunt while suffering through withdrawal. Not long after returning home, Cobain's heroin use resumed.
Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Cobain proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. Cobain was detoxed unsuccessfully many times by questionable physicians in the now-infamous celebrity detox programs in posh hotels before relapsing and dying of a drug overdose and probable suicide in 1994.
Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife, Courtney Love, on March 3, 1994. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol. Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. Love later stated that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.
On March 18, 1994, Love phoned the Seattle police informing them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love said that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.
Love arranged an intervention regarding Cobain's drug use on March 25, 1994. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. The intervention was initially unsuccessful, with an angry Cobain insulting and heaping scorn on its participants and eventually locking himself in the upstairs bedroom. However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30, 1994. The staff at the facility were unaware of Cobain's history of depression and prior attempts at suicide. When visited by friends, there was no indication to them that Cobain was in any negative or suicidal state of mind. He spent the day talking to counselors about his drug abuse and personal problems, happily playing with his daughter Frances. These interactions were the last time Cobain saw his daughter. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, and climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility (which he had joked earlier in the day would be a stupid feat to attempt). He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. On the flight, he sat next to Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses. Despite Cobain's own personal animosity towards Guns N' Roses and specifically Axl Rose, Cobain "seemed happy" to see McKagan. McKagan later stated he knew from "all of my instincts that something was wrong."Most of his close friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 2 and 3, 1994, Cobain was spotted in numerous locations around Seattle. On April 3, 1994, Love contacted private investigator Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. Cobain was not seen on April 4, 1994. On April 7, 1994, amid rumors of Nirvana breaking up, the band pulled out of that year's Lollapalooza music festival.
On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician named Gary Smith who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A note was found, addressed to Cobain's childhood imaginary friend "Boddah", that stated that Cobain had not "felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of diazepam were also found in his body. Cobain's body had been lying there for days; the coroner's report estimated Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.
A public vigil was held for Cobain on April 10, 1994, at a park at Seattle Center drawing approximately seven thousand mourners. Prerecorded messages by Krist Novoselic and Courtney Love were played at the memorial. Love read portions of Cobain's suicide note to the crowd, crying and chastising Cobain. Near the end of the vigil, Love arrived at the park and distributed some of Cobain's clothing to those who still remained. Dave Grohl would say that the news of Cobain's death was "probably the worst thing that has happened to me in my life. I remember the day after that I woke up and I was heartbroken that he was gone. I just felt like, 'Okay, so I get to wake up today and have another day and he doesn't.'" He also believed that he knew Cobain would die at an early age, saying that "sometimes you just can't save someone from themselves," and "in some ways, you kind of prepare yourself emotionally for that to be a reality." Dave Reed, who for a short time was Cobain's foster father, said that "he had the desperation, not the courage, to be himself. Once you do that, you can't go wrong, because you can't make any mistakes when people love you for being yourself. But for Kurt, it didn't matter that other people loved him; he simply didn't love himself enough."
A final ceremony was arranged for Cobain by his mother on May 31, 1999, attended by both Courtney Love and Tracy Marander. As a Buddhist monk chanted, his daughter Frances Bean scattered his ashes into McLane Creek in Olympia, the city where he "had found his true artistic muse."
Cobain's artistic endeavors and struggles with heroin addiction, illness and depression, as well as the circumstances of his death have become a frequent topic of fascination, debate, and controversy throughout the world. He is one of the well known members of the 27 Club.
Cobain has been remembered as one of the most iconic rock musicians in the history of alternative music. In 2003, David Fricke of Rolling Stone ranked him the 12th greatest guitarist of all time. He was later ranked the 73rd greatest guitarist and 45th greatest singer of all time by the same magazine, and by MTV as 7th in the "22 Greatest Voices in Music". In 2006, he was placed at number twenty by Hit Parader on their list of the "100 Greatest Metal Singers of All Time". Reflecting on Cobain's death over ten years later, MSNBC's Eric Olsen wrote, "In the intervening decade, Cobain, a small, frail but handsome man in life, has become an abstract Generation X icon, viewed by many as the 'last real rock star' . . . a messiah and martyr whose every utterance has been plundered and parsed".
In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington, that read "Welcome to Aberdeen – Come As You Are" as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May 2004 to honor Cobain. The Committee planned to create a Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen. Because Cobain was cremated and his remains scattered into the Wishkah River in Washington, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain's former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory.
In 2006, Cobain took the place of Elvis Presley as the top-earning deceased celebrity, after the sale of the Nirvana song catalogue. Presley reclaimed the spot in 2007.
Controversy erupted in July 2009 when a monument to Cobain in Aberdeen along the Wishkah River included the quote "...Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up." The city ultimately decided to sandblast the monument to replace the expletive with "f---", but fans immediately drew the letters back in.
Prior to Cobain's death, writer Michael Azerrad published Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, a book chronicling Nirvana's career from its beginning, as well as the personal histories of the band members. The book explored Cobain's drug addiction, as well as the countless controversies surrounding the band. After Cobain's death, Azerrad re-published the book to include a final chapter discussing the last year of Cobain's life. The book is notable, as it involved the band members themselves, who provided interviews and personal information to Azerrad specifically for the book. In 2006, Azerrad's taped conversations with Cobain were transformed into a documentary about Cobain, titled Kurt Cobain: About a Son. Though this film does not feature any music by Nirvana, it has songs by the artists that inspired Cobain.
In the 1998 documentary Kurt & Courtney, filmmaker Nick Broomfield investigated Tom Grant's claim that Cobain was actually murdered. He took a film crew to visit a number of people associated with Cobain and Love; Love's father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couple's former nannies. Broomfield also spoke to Mentors bandleader Eldon "El Duce" Hoke, who claimed Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. Although Hoke claimed he knew who killed Cobain, he failed to mention a name, and offered no evidence to support his assertion. Broomfield inadvertently captured Hoke's last interview, as he died days later, reportedly hit by a train. However, Broomfield felt he had not uncovered enough evidence to conclude the existence of a conspiracy. In a 1998 interview, Broomfield summed it up by saying,
"I think that he committed suicide. I don't think there's a smoking gun. And I think there's only one way you can explain a lot of things around his death. Not that he was murdered, but that there was just a lack of caring for him. I just think that Courtney had moved on, and he was expendable."
Broomfield's documentary was noted by The New York Times to be a rambling, largely speculative and circumstantial work, relying on flimsy evidence as was his later documentary Biggie and Tupac.
Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a similar path and attempted to investigate any possible conspiracy for themselves. Their initial work, the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? argued that, while there was not enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand that the case be reopened. A notable element of the book included their discussions with Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation that he had undertaken while he was in Love's employ. Over the next several years, Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain.
In 2001, writer Charles R. Cross published a biography of Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven. For the book, Cross conducted over 400 interviews, and was given access by Courtney Love to Cobain's journals, lyrics, and diaries. Cross' biography was met with criticism, including allegations of Cross accepting secondhand (and incorrect) information as fact. Friend Everett True, who derided the book as being inaccurate, omissive, and highly biased; he said Heavier than Heaven was "the Courtney-sanctioned version of history" or, alternatively, Cross's "Oh, I think I need to find the new Bruce Springsteen now" Kurt Cobain book. However, beyond the criticism, the book contained many details about Cobain and Nirvana's career that would have otherwise been unnoted. Additionally, in 2008 Cross published Cobain Unseen: Mosaic of an Artist, a compilation of annotated photographs and creations and writings by Cobain throughout his life and career. In 2002, a sampling of Cobain's writings was published as Journals. The book fills 280 pages with a simple black cover; the pages are arranged somewhat chronologically (although Cobain generally did not date them). The journal pages are reproduced in color, and there is a section added at the back with explanations and transcripts of some of the less legible pages. The writings begin in the late 1980s and were continued until his death. A paperback version of the book, released in 2003, included a handful of writings that were not offered in the initial release. In the journals, Cobain talked about the ups and downs of life on the road, made lists of what music he was enjoying, and often scribbled down lyric ideas for future reference. Upon its release, reviewers and fans were conflicted about the collection. Many were elated to be able to learn more about Cobain and read his inner thoughts in his own words, but were disturbed by what was viewed as an invasion of his privacy.
Gus Van Sant loosely based his 2005 movie Last Days on the events in the final days of Cobain's life, starring Michael Pitt as Cobain. In January 2007, Courtney Love began to shop the biography Heavier Than Heaven to various movie studios in Hollywood to turn the book into an A-list feature film about Cobain and Nirvana. The video game Guitar Hero 5 features Cobain as a playable character. However, the inclusion of Cobain incensed surviving bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl and wife Courtney Love, expressing their dismay at the ability to use Cobain with any song, including those sung by female vocalists.
In 2009, ECW Press released a book titled Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music. It was written by Greg Prato, featuring portions about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain's life and death (including new interviews with bandmates and friends), as well as exploring the history of grunge in great detail. A picture of Cobain from the Bleach era is used for the book's front cover, and its title comes from a shirt that Cobain was once photographed wearing.
In December 2012, during Art Basel exhibition in Miami, artist Adarsha Benjamin presented her experimental short film titled Kurt. Also, there is an upcoming documentary about Cobain to be filmed by director Brett Morgen. Morgen said that documentary "will be this generation's The Wall". It is expected out in 2014.
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