Kurt Cobain Died 30 Years Ago Today
Hard to believe it’s been so long, but I can of course remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. I was 16, working as a busboy at a place called Mother’s Market & Kitchen, and one of our regular customers came in, sat down at the counter, and told us the news. No cell phones or internet back then, so he must’ve heard about it on the radio or the TV. This was a local report from Seattle on April 8th, 1994 (Cobain shot himself on April 5th, but they didn’t discover the body for a few days):
I think my favorite Nirvana song is “Lithium,” mainly because of how epic the live performances were:
Tori Amos, being spot-on as usual, talking about Nivana’s impact and Cobain’s legacy:
Nirvana’s surprisingly sweetest song, “About A Girl,” which almost sounds like a Beatles record, was performed during the now infamous MTV Unplugged show:
There’s an entire section devoted to Kurt Cobain’s sexuality on his Wikipedia, which I wasn’t really fully aware of until a few years ago. Back in 1992 and 1993, this kind of information wasn’t widely disseminated by the media (for obvious homophobic reasons), and it would’ve been nice for gay teens like myself—who already loved Cobain to begin with—to have known about it at the time:
In October 1992, when asked, “Well, are you gay?” by Monk Magazine, Cobain replied, “If I wasn’t attracted to Courtney, I’d be a bisexual.”[78] In another interview, he described identifying with the gay community in The Advocate, stating, “I’m definitely gay in spirit and I probably could be bisexual” and “if I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual life-style”, but also that he was “more sexually attracted to women”.[79][80] One of his personal journals states, “I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes.”[40]
Cobain advocated for LGBTQ+ rights, including traveling to Oregon to perform at a benefit opposing the 1992 Oregon Ballot Measure 9,[79] and supported local bands with LGBTQ+ members. [A] 1993 interview with The Advocate being described as “the only [interview] the band’s lead singer says he plans to do for Incesticide“,[79] an album whose liner notes included a statement decrying homophobia, racism and misogyny:[79]“If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us—leave us the fuck alone! Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.”
Finally, in maybe his cutest and most innocent moment, here was Kurt Cobain reacting to the fact that Madonna charged $50 for her concert tickets. Jesus Christ, if he only knew what she was charging now, 30 years later:
