Sorry, this is a day late.
I remember exactly where I was when Kurt Cobain died. I was working as a promotion honcho at 89X. I was sitting at my desk working on some “Song Of The Day” promotional crap when my boss, the lovely, charming, always perfectly coiffed (she really does have amazing hair), Rae Cline walked out of her office and stared me down. Now Rae giving me the stare down was not an uncommon thing. Sometimes it meant, “hey, lets go have a smoke, or hey I have an idea come listen to this cool event I just hooked up, and sometimes it meant, hey dick head, did you set up that Alice In Chains promotion at the State Theatre?” But the stare in Rae’s eyes that day was like nothing I had seen before. Rae always struck me as a stunning woman, but her body and her face were lacking its usual color, beauty…life. Her gaze was sad, incredulous, a bit lost. Rae murmured, “They found a body at Kurt Cobain’s house.” I knew exactly what that meant. Kurt was dead. It wasn’t all that surprising, but still it chilled me to the bone and stopped me in my tracks unlike anything before. Kurt had been on a downward spiral. It was so sad to watch. After struggling with his emotional and physical pain, addiction and then the unlikely, unprecedented success of his band Nirvana, it seemed as though he had found some sort of happiness. But whatever his true demons really were, he could not conquer them and took his own life.
That was almost 20 years ago and so much has changed…in my life, in the entertainment industry, in the world. It saddens me that so many kids these days have no idea who Kurt Cobain was and what he meant during that time and its place in music history. A time when the truly pure, indie, underground music scene organically took over and redefined popular music.
Kurt Cobain
February 20, 1967- April 8, 1994
Teenage angst has paid off well
Now I’m bored and old
Self-appointed judges judge
More than they have sold
If she floats than she is not
A witch like we had thought
A down payment on another
One at Salem’s lot
Serve the servants – oh no
As my bones grew they did hurt
They hurt really bad
I tried hard to have a father
But instead I had a dad
I just want you to know that I
Don’t hate you anymore
There is nothing I could say
That I haven’t thought before
Serve the servants – oh no
That legendary divorce is such a bore