Kurt Donald Cobain (1967 – 1994)
Lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the American grunge band, Nirvana.
I use bits and pieces of others [sic] personalities to form my own. [p. 95]
If it was up to me, I'd get more oil tanker drivers drunk. I don’t value music much. I like the Beatles, but I hate Paul McCartney. I like Led Zeppelin, but I hate Robert Plant. I like the Who, but I hate Roger Daltrey.
My favorite color is red, like the blood shed
from Kurt Cobain's head, when he shot himself dead.
I'd like to live off the band, but if not, I'll just retire to Mexico or Yugoslavia with a few hundred dollars, grow potatoes, and learn the history of rock through back issues of Creem magazine.
Rage and aggression were elements for Kurt to play with as an artist, but he was profoundly gentle and intelligent.
I take pride as the king of illiterature.
Yeah, he talked a lot about what direction he was heading in. I mean, I know what the next Nirvana recording was going to sound like. It was going to be very quiet and acoustic, with lots of stringed instruments. It was going to be an amazing fucking record, and I’m a little bit angry at him for killing himself. He and I were going to record a trial run of the album, a demo tape. It was all set up. He had a plane ticket. He had a car picking him up. And at the last minute he called and said, "I can't come."
Nirvana were like...power-chord music with the occasional Sonic Youth-y flip-out in it. But the power of that band is Kurt Cobain's voice, which is just fucking caramel–a beautiful rock voice.
I'm sorry I couldn't have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen Center, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him. Or maybe not.
I can't play [guitar] like Segovia. The flip side of that is that Segovia could probably never have played like me.
In Kurt’s voice I could hear his love of bluegrass music, of Bill Monroe and Leadbelly. It’s in the twang of his voice.
I've been waiting for that! (After an audience member requests "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.)
What of Kurt Cobain, will his presence still remain?
Hate me
Do it and do it again
Waste me
Rape me, my friend.
My sister, she says she knows Elvis Presley
She knows Jesus, John Lennon, and Kurt Cobain personally.
He gathered up his loved ones
And he brought them all around
To say, "Goodbye, nice try."
Maybe I'm crazy, addicted to pain
Maybe the cocaine destroyed my brain
Private conversations with Kurt Cobain
I'm drownin' my fears in the acid rain.
Hate your enemies
Save your friends
Find your place
Speak the truth.
He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me.
Same thing happened in the punk movement in the late 70's...a punk band would start, play one gig, and get signed to a major label right away, 'cause it [was] a trend. That just shows there are a lot of old school dinosaurs in the record industry who need to be weeded out.