On His Death

            We know a lot about the man Kurt Cobain. We know about his childhood, his life, and we know about the physical problems that pained him since his adolescence. We know his music and that is certainly illuminating, but it is one aspect of the artist’s life that now, in retrospect, seems to be the clearest lens with which we can view his life, his art, and his death.

            On April 8^th, 1994, Seattle PD found Kurt Cobain dead in his greenhouse from an apparently self-inflicted shotgun would to the head. He left a note reading,                                                           

       Some speculate that this note, however, was only partially written by Kurt Cobain. The note is clearly written in two different types of handwriting which may suggest the latter section was not written by Kurt. On the other hand, though, Kurt Cobain was also severely intoxicated with heroine at the time, having an insanely high blood content especially considering his small stature. Clearly, it comes as no surprise that the last section, most likely written while Cobain was intoxicated and probably just before he killed himself, has a different handwriting style than the former section. Still, the theory that it wasn’t him is still evident in that the first and primary portion of the suicide note doesn’t actually mention dying, it could simply be his resignation from the music industry.

            The only major evidence within the note that is contrary to this is the final lines of the first section, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away,” a direct quote from Neil Young’s song, Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black). Other than that, though, the direct suicide references exist only in the messy latter part. While these comments are only directly written in the latter part of his note, though, they are scribbled all over the artist’s lyrics, diaries and even interviews.
            More interesting than the speculation of his death is the actual effect it had; how his suicide now colors his work and art. Kurt’s music has always been painted in dark colors, but after his death people began looking back at his music and lyrics with a new mindset.

          “Look on the bright side, suicide/ Lost eyesight, I’m on your side/Angel, left wing, right wing, broken wing/ Lack of iron and/or sleeping,” Cobain screams, confronting the idea of suicide head on and directly in the song, Milk It. The entire song is about the depression Kurt Cobain harbors inside of himself, but when he yells these four lines, an entirely new idea emerges. Perhaps it is only now that we can see Cobain’s intentions in the lyrics, but maybe it is rather that in the light of his suicide, the true authenticity of his lyrics comes to light. “Look on the bright side,” Cobain says, confronting suicide directly; “Lost eyesight, I’m on your/[suicides] side.” Here, Cobain seems to be saying that he’s lost sight of his ambition and needs. He feels broken, and he is literally contemplating the bright side of suicide, in his case it seems to be release. Without Cobain’s suicide, though, these lyrics seem to be Cobain simply flirting with the idea. It is all too apparent now how all encompassing the negative aspects of his life were, though.

            In another song, Scentless Apprentice, Cobain yells out as he closes his song, “You can’t fire me because I quit/ Throw me in the fire and I won’t throw a fit!” A common theme in Kurt’s work was how he has been abused by the music industry and media, but here Cobain clearly and viscerally states his deepest feelings about it. As he says in his note, “I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now;” Kurt lost his love for his work, but here in his song he out rightly says he would rather die than keep on obeying and following the life he has been thrown into.

            Perhaps Cobain’s most explicit references to suicide come from the haunting song, Pennyroyal Tea, though.  The entire song is dripped in thoughts of death, and in his lyrics, in the same way that his note does, describes why – what is was that made him think so deeply about death. It was just a song, however, and a vague one at that, and no one seemed to take Kurt’s words to heart until after it was too late. Perhaps, though, it is only now that we can truly see the implications.

            Pennyroyal Tea, a drink used a long time ago that Kurt Cobain grabbed the song title from, was once used to cause abortions in pregnant women. It didn’t work, however, and instead only resulted in severe stomach pain. While Kurt Cobain probably never actually drank Pennyroyal tea, he did suffer from sever stomach and back pains all his life. They would even become the reason the young artist first took to drugs. In the song, however, Kurt Cobain uses Pennyroyal tea as a metaphor, saying he could drink Pennyroyal Tea all day and it still wouldn’t compare to his own stomach pains. Dark lyrics undoubtedly, but they are also what draws the song together, painting a picture of Kurt Cobain’s intensely disturbed interactions with the world.

            The song in its entirety is basically Kurt Cobain describing how he lives his life and the constant pain he feels. “I’m on my time with everyone,” Cobain sings to open the song, and with that lyric he sets the stage: he can’t stand the world or his interactions with it; he is literally on his edge with everyone he meets.  He is “anemic royalty,” he says over and over again. He is successful and rich, but he is still sick. His ‘fortunes’ haven’t brought him any satisfaction, and he is simply left anemic royalty. When he says, “I’m on warm milk and laxatives/ Cherry-flavored antacids,” however, Kurt Cobain reveals a startling thing about himself, but what is more startling is how he treats it.  When Kurt Cobain says “warm milk and laxatives,” he is using a metaphor for heroine and the other drugs he used to sooth his pain. He says, “I’m on,” to illuminate this, but buries the true medicine he was using in pleasant home remedies. In this way Cobain seems to almost make light of his problem, or perhaps the severity of the drug. Either way, though, whether it is his treatment of his drug problem or how casually he describes, this lyric far more than unsettling. The drug habit for him began as a remedy for him to escape the constant pain he was in. In his own words, though, “I just thought, if I’m going to die, if I’m going to kill myself, I should just take some drugs.”

            Kurt Cobain’s story is an extremely sad one. At the age of seven his parents divorced, and the young artist’s childhood seemed to shatter with it. He grew up in and out of his parents houses and living homeless under bridges or on the street. It was at this time that his stomach pain reached a sort of peak, and with it the artist began using heroine. Even when Kurt Cobain finally grew up and became successful the sad story didn’t end; the artist became a target of the media and a type of pawn for the music industry. “The sad little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man” was thrust into a world where he had lost his privacy, and everything that he hated about himself was thrown directly into his face. Cobain found a love and had a baby and for a time that seemed to console him, but it also seemed to tear him up.

           “Throw back your umbilical noose so I can climb right back,” Kurt Cobain sings in his song, Heart Shaped Box, talking about how terrifying the idea of having a baby was for him. Frances, his daughter, may have made him happy, but it without a doubt also terrified him deep down, as he ends his suicide note with the words, “Frances and Courtney, I’ll be at your alter. Please keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me.” As I said before, Kurt Cobain’s life is a sad one, but what is almost more sad is how many of his direct statements about his depression and suicidal tendencies were ignored or unnoticed until it was too late. Still, with the artists suicide now more than twenty years old, the artist’s work is still well known and influential, and while his death may have ended his career, it also seems to have allowed him to become the cult figure and cultural icon he is today. As Neil Young sings in Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), “the king is gone but he’s not forgotten.”

Bibliography

1.    Fricke, David. “Heart-Shaped Noise. (Cover Story).” Rolling Stone 683 (1994): 63.                          Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014

2.    Gilmore, Mikal, and Tobias Perse. “The Road From Nowhere. (Cover Story).” Rolling                     Stone 683 (1994): 44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014

3.    Gold, Todd, Alexis Chiu, and Mary Green. “Remembering Kurt.” People 61.14 (2004):                    230-232. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014

4.    Strauss, Neil, and Alex Foege. “The Downward Spiral. (Cover Story).”  Rolling Stones                  683 (1994): 35. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014