So happy, for the day I found a friend
2004-04-08
So this past Monday saw the ten-year anniversary of the death by suicide of Kurt Cobain. Now, I don't think of myself as one those starfuckers, fame trackers, rock star groupie folks, but there are certain authors, musicians, politicians, famous people (not so much actors) and famous things that have had a fairly profound effect on my life. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana are definitely included. I remember clearly the day Kurt died � going to school and seeing the other kids there carrying around pictures of him and some people crying. But, I remember even more clearly the first time I heard the song "smells like teen spirit" which - like many people - was the first Nirvana song I ever heard. I was 11 years old and at home alone in New Jersey. My mother had recently started working part-time in Princeton, my dad was living overseas in Bahrain, my older sister was at lacrosse practice and younger brother was not home from day care yet, and I tended to spend a lot of time alone in those days. I would come home from school each day, finish what little homework I had, and watch some TV before having to get dinner ready and the whole crowd came storming home. So it was one of those days when I had finished my homework and was enjoying a few guilty moments of watching MTV. (Just like most kids back then, we had cable at home, but somehow our parents expected us to NEVER watch MTV, VH1 or those other dirty, inappropriate channels). In any case�there I was furtively watching the screen while keeping an ear to the door, when I heard the first few notes of �smells like teen spirit� and I was completely mesmerized, just absolutely glued to the couch. My musical experience up until that point had been mostly shaped by what my older, already more conservative sister listened to - Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Boyz II Men, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston�you get the idea. Up until that point I thought anything harder than that was heavy metal, noise, crap.
After that first�hit (in retrospect I realize that�s exactly what it felt like) I was hooked, and I was able to join the other �hip� grade sixers who spent a lot of recesses trying to decipher the lyrics. (It�s really a shame that the word �libido� was never on any of our weekly vocab quizzes, that�s one word we would have aced). Anyway � and please excuse the melodrama � Nirvana opened something up in me that ultimately became very meaningful. I mean I�ve never been much of the groupie type � I still don�t own all the albums, I don�t know half the lyrics, and I don�t own any paraphernalia � but I remember days, coming home from school listening to my Nevermind cassette, and washing the dishes, doing schoolwork, drawing in whiteboard marker on the kitchen counters. Those were lonely days as my family was not around a lot, and the few friends I had were in different grades or different classes and not that close to me anyway. I realize now that I was pretty�depressed for an 11 year old. Or maybe that is normal at that age. I�m not sure. I used to write short stories about death and I had a book full of sketches that were suggestive of suicide (a tree with a noose, a wounded arm peeking out from a corner in an empty kitchen). In any case, Nirvana made me happy in that misery loves company sort of way, and so much of that was Kurt�s voice coming out at me pure, strong and full of�well, whatever emotion it was full of at that moment.
As I grew older, and more consciously interested in being a nonconformist, I got a bit more uncomfortable with my unabashed love for Nirvana, my crush on Kurt and with the fact that most kids I knew felt the same. I tried to downplay my love for the band and the music. I don�t exactly know why this made sense at the time, but it did. Luckily though the self-conscious stupidity of youth fades a lot faster than really good music. I kept rediscovering my love for the band, for Kurt, and after his death I think it became pretty clear that Kurt was more than just one-third of the band. I�m not saying the Novoselic and Grohl were less-talented or less instrumental, but Kurt was definitely the magnet that drew you in. I�m convinced that Nirvana is one of the best bands of the 90�s, one of the top bands of the 20th century, and Kurt Cobain one of the most influential musicians � and the past few days in the news I�ve been finding confirmation of this everywhere � not that I need the news to tell me so. Heh.
So, I was just wanted to take a moment to reflect a bit on a man that meant something to me and to a lot of the people that I know and whose taste in music I respect (hi BK!). We may have outgrown him, but growing up would have been very different without him.