Seventeen years ago today, Kurt Cobain's body was found in a room above the garage of his Seattle home. He'd shot himself in the head. I haven't seen this commemorated anywhere, but the date is emblazoned in my mind. Why? Because it was three days after my 21st birthday, and I had really long hair that I'd decided to cut off on April 8, 1994. I came into the house, walked into the living room where my mom was sitting, went, "Ta da!!" and she simply looked at me and said, "That Kurt Cobain guy is dead." I was shattered, and to make it worse, news came out a day later that he'd actually committed suicide on my birthday... it had just taken them three days to find him. To this day, I hear "Heart-Shaped Box" and it stirs up these warring feelings within me of immense sadness and happiness. I loved that song, but listened to In Utero over and over again after his death, so I associate it with that. I loved Nirvana, and I loved Kurt. He'll never reach the age of 30, and will instead forever be immortalized as the young, lovely, angry, dishevelled voice of a generation. I still miss him. I'll always think of today as the anniversary of his death, because I don't want to commemorate it on my birthday.
RIP, Kurt.
4 comments:
*hugs*
I was in Dallas, Texas visiting friends. We'd been hanging out in Deep Ellum, the arts district downtown where the friend's gallery was located, and we had walked up the street to grab lunch and window shop. As I stood at the counter in an empty little cafe, placing an order for a sandwich, someone from an adjacent shop burst in the door behind me, said "Dude, did you hear? Kurt Cobain," then put a hand to his head, fingers extended like a gun, and mimicked the sound of a shot.
In my mind, he just spit this crass, unceremonious proclamation and then ran right back out the door without further ado, but in truth, I have no idea exactly what happened next. It was like the world filled up with white noise, and I completely blanked out for a moment. It wasn't that the news was particularly shocking, really, considering his demeanor and personality, but just so, so devastating to think that he'd go through with it, that he'd just give up and give in, even in spite of all the adoration he'd received from us. I was gutted.
He, Mark Sandman, Elliott Smith and Chris Whitley are the only music world losses that have ever crushed me to quite that degree, and I'm still not completely over any of them.
I was too young to be a Nirvana fan back then, but I'll always remember the big black & white poster of Kurt smoking a cigarette that my cousin used to have hanging on the wall of his bedroom.
(Happy Birthday)
When someone makes such a mark on the world...it's hard to imagine life without them.
Even if you didn't know them personally.
I was 5yrs old
I know that I knew who Nirvana was but their importance to the previous generation and Cobain's affect on people....I couldn't grasp being that young.
It wasn't until I was about 7 or 8,When a late night music show in Australia called Rage aired a Nirvana/Cobain tribute...did it hit me that Kurt was special.
At a time like this I feel bad for his Daughter Frances...She didn't get to know her Father.
The little bit of solace is that she has a whole group of people that can show her that her father meant alot to them...& to the world.
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