Kurt's Obituary

Kurt Donald Cobain

Much has been written about the events of April 8th, 1994 - the day Kurt Cobain's body was discovered in the garage of his home - and, for the thousands of Nirvana fans left behind, that day will remain in their memory for many years to come. Cynics have claimed that Cobain tried to make himself a "rock and roll martyr" by taking his own life - an attempt to secure the reputation as the Jim Morrison of the nineties - but such speculation tends to overlook the terrible tragedy of the death of one of the most influential artists of this decade. Such statements are stupid and insensitive. To this day there is uncertainty surrounding the death of James Morrison, with this very uncertainty perpetuating the legend of his martyrdom - his attempt to "break on through to the other side." In fact there are those who maintain he never died, but instead feigned his own death and escaped the pressures of his lifestyle to live out his remaining days anonymously. There are no such uncertainties surrounding the death of Kurt Cobain. He was found in his garage, having been dead for some time from a single, self-administered shotgun blast to the head. Around him were some tapes, a computer game, a hand-written suicide note, and a cuddly toy. He was positively identified from his fingerprints. Kurt Cobain had grown up in small-town Aberdeen, Washington, "like Twin Peaks without the excitement". His happy childhood was shattered forever at the age of eight with the rancorous separation of his parents. The sudden and unexpected success of Nirvana, with their Nevermind album selling in excess of ten million copies world-wide, gave Kurt Cobain the place as one of the spokesmen for a generation. Their music opened the way for countless other "underground" bands, but brought the inevitable barrage of media attention, picking his life apart, carving him open and laying his innards out for all to see. Kurt had suffered from a rare illness for almost seven years, causing a chronic stomach pain of such an intensity that almost every day he considered killing himself. This constant severe pain led to a deep melancholic depression verging on schizophrenia, and frequent bouts of narcolepsy. None of the doctors he visited were of any help, but the money he made from Nirvana offered him a temporary release to the pain - through heroin. Soon the heroin took over, and although he tried to kick the habit on numerous occasions, the stomach pains returned with such an intensity that even the heroin appeared to be a better alternative. His undoubted love and devotion for his wife, Courtney Love, and his daughter Frances, brought the first real happiness and hope into his life for many years, but the constant media attention, and increasingly frequent bouts of depression finally drove him to the edge. There will surely be much speculation as to what finally caused him to crack, but one thing can be said for certain - this was no "rock and roll martyrdom", but rather the tragic waste of a creative life. The pressures which brought Kurt Cobain to the point of ending his life were supremely human and not explained simply as the result of a "degenerate" lifestyle. The tears he cried were as valid as the tears of any other human being, the pain he felt was just as real and as justified as any pain ever was, and the tragic actions he took were the only solution he could find. Around the Cobain home, on the morning Kurt's body was found, dew would have fallen. The sun would have risen on a new day, the air would be filled with the sounds of the morning, yet, within the house, Cobain's body lay as silent witness to the pain and emptiness that typifies the human condition. Looking at a famous photograph of Kurt taken after a concert in 1991, I see a distraught young man wrestling with forces inside him which he cannot understand or control. There are no rock dramatics about this young man, nor is there any of the craziness which permeated his work and his lifestyle. There is merely a terrified, lonely individual, and I weep for him.