best viewed with a loving heart
The life of a Legend
The story of Kurt Cobain is a story of great talent, hardship and tragedy. But it is a story that needs to be heard and one i think we can all relate to in some way.
Kurt was born in 1967 200 miles away from Seattle in the small up state logging town of Aberdine. He lived there with his parents and sister and was introduced to music at a very young age, by his aunt. At seven years of age his life took a drastic change. His parents divorced and he was forced to look at the world in a different light.
As the home situation became more unbareable for Kurt he was ferried between houses, staying with different relatives and friends. He spent many nights sleeping under the bridge at the end of his street (the bridge imortalised by his song Something In The Way) here he would spend the time alone writting his first lyrics. Kurt had by this time become very alienated from other people and life, he was very detacted and emotionally inwood. He didn't have any real friends at school to talk to and all the other guys he knew didn't want anything to do with him cause they thought he was wierd or gay.
He would use most of his time in high school to cut class and go to the libary and read whatever he could lay his hands on. He would listen to various types of music including The Beatles, but, living in a small town he could never get the chance to listen to the music that really interested him. Eventually he got a tape of some Punk Rock his friend got for him from Seattle. He then knew that this type of music was going to be his escape, a way out from the life he hated to point of despare. By this time Kurt had turned 15 he had already learned to play guitar so the process of forming a band, with the help of his Aunt, was a natural progression, Nirvana was born. Kurt did not really like the music of the bigger rock bands like the Sex Pistols, Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, he felt there lyrics were sexist and pointless with no meaning. Kurt was a very sensitive and emotional person and this shows though in this songs.
Kurt moved to Seattle to live with his only true love, before he was famous, Tracy Merander, imortalised in his song "about a girl". He stayed with her for three years, happerly, and at the time was working on songs for the Bleach album. He was also a very talented artist and would enjoy spending time painting or sculpting, giving much of the work he produced to Tracy. Although his life was now fairly stable he had many troubles with him self and his life. He did not feel emotionally secure and this was often portrayed in his art work especially his sketches, drawings and paintings. He found it hard to hold down a job and work on the band, he spent most of his time living with Tracy working at a doctors surgery as a janeter. Life was becoming a downward spiral in the eyes of Kurt.
Kurt's band, Nirvana, began to reach a local audiance, as it's cult following grew accros America and the world Kurt started to feel more and more isolated. He very rarely got to spend time with the people that had come to mean something to him as he had grown up though those troubled early years. As his fame grew and the band beacme even more famous the pressure mounted, Kurt's body guards and minders were always with him and his friends became more cut off, to a point where they could not get to talk to him at all. Kurt hated the fame, he felt so embaresssed by it all, riding in big expensive cars and staying in luxurious hotels embaressed him to a point of despare, he was a humble person, and he felt that the lifestyle he was being forced to lead went against everything he believed in and stood for. One time Kurt was riding in a limo to play at a gig in Seattle, his friend Amy was in the car with him and she has reported, that he explained to her, that usually they would take a van to gigs and that the limo was not a desision he had made. She says that he made apoint of stressing this to her the whole way, that was the last time she saw him.
Kurt felt alot of resentment for his past and the way in which he grew up, not toward his parents, but more aimed at the world and the way that society was constructed. In Tellevision and radio interviews he would often talk about how screwed up the world was. That he didn't see how anybody could possibly consider bringing a child into the world the way it was. Kurt spent most of his life in depression, with the exeption of a few years in the early 90's, this is reflected in the music he wrote, but Kurt had reason to feel this way, the life he had was never close to what he wanted. The only thing that kept Kurt going though all the pressure, and, embaressment he felt towards fame, was the music he was producing and playing the world over. However his passion was slowly diminishing.
All the touring and pressure got to him in the end, Kurt became ill. His mother had suffered with stormach pains in her early 20's and Kurt had began to suffer the same illness. The doctors could not determin what was the cause, they put it down to stress. Kurt tryed to treat it with everything, but nothing would work. Often he would feel to ill to play, and this went on for a few years. Kurt was sick of feeling ill all the time and took the only thing left that would stop the pain. Kurt became an addict, another casulty of Heroin. In interviews he would stress that it was more for the "pain" than the "fame" being the reason for his heroin use, and that he hated and was continualy making an effot to control his habit and get off it completely.
Then, Kurt met Courtney. Courtney Love became a big part of Kurt's life in a relatively short space of time. Kurt's life took a drastic, sudden change. They got a place together in Seattle, got married and had a child, Frances Cobain. There relationship looked perfect from the outside, but most of the people that knew them said it was very turbulent and that Courtney was using Kurt, playing on his sensitivity. She had a very bad up bringing with heroin use going back to when she was 15 years old. She was an extremely violent person, ruthless and crazy in some of her actions towards other people, Kurt and fame gave her power and the stepping stone she needed to get to the top. Courtney is quoted as saying that they had a pharmacuticaly suited relationship. Although now Courtney has transformed her image and become a rock star and movie actress nominated for 2 acadamy awards. She will not talk about her past or time and involvement with Kurt Cobain. But like many others i think it is undisputible that Courtney was the "route of the cause" behind Kurt's death. Her own father claims she killed Kurt, and he has written several books about it. The book "Kurt Cobain, beyond Nirvana" was written, ironicaly, by Courtney's father and in it he declairs overwheming evidence supporting the murder theory. However the facts are that even if Courtney didn't pull the trigger she was the one to kill Kurt.
When Nirvana were doing there world tour 1993, the last tour they would ever do, Kurt was inteviewed back stage of a gig by Guitar World magazine. He didn't know it at the time but this would become one of the most famous interviews in history. Later haled as "The lost Interview" it was only published recently, nearly 4 years after his death. I can't give the url to it out or create a link to it for certain legal ristrictions. However i do recomend you read it, and i can tell you how to find it on the net. Go to the Alta Vista search engine, type kurt cobain. You should find a page titled "The lost Interview" in the first couple of pages of results, go to the begining of the interview, and read away.
The Interview showed a different Kurt to what we expected, he was happy and content with life. He is quoted as saying he hadn't been this happy since when he was 7, before his family break up. He spoke wisley about his "past" battle with heroin addiction and how he viewed life differently once in love. Where he had said in the past he didn't believe in bringing a child into the world, he corrected himself and said it ain't all really that bad. He speaks about meeting up with his dad and his childhood in Aberdine. It is an honest and indepth interview covering his whole life in his own words. However, shortly after that interview, Kurt's life would turn around again and this time he hit an all time low.
Kurt was in Rome for his birthday, and, he was supposed to meet with Courtney there. She did not go to Rome though. She was in London with the lead singer from the band Smashing Pumkins, it is said that they were having an affair. She then flew to Paris and Kurt was left totally alone, in Rome, without even seeing his daughter which he wanted so bad. Things had worsen'd in there marrige and there was talk of divorce. Courtney tried to pay a hitman none as "El Ducho" (who was mysteriously killed later in 1996 after talking to the media about it) $50.000 to kill Kurt. Still in Rome Kurt was becoming desperatly depressed and over dosed on heroin. It was said, by the media, to be a suiside attempt.
Kurt was flown to a rehabilitation clinic in Califonia to recover and quit his addiction. Courtney was still in Paris and did not comment on the news of her husbands over dose. Kurt got in touch with his best friend Dillon and asked him to purches a shot-gun. On April 2nd 1994 Kurt escaped from the clinic and flew back to Seattle. I don't think that Kurt asked his friend Dillon (imortalised by his song "in bloom") to get him the shot-gun with the intention of killing him self. I think Kurt had been thinking about his relationship with Courtney and knowing her violent nature, bought the gun a a precautionary measure. Dillon said that he would not have bought the gun for his best friend if he thought in any way he was suisidal.
The story concludes on the next page, "The death of a legend", follow the link bellow.