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Nirvana - Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam

Has it really been seventeen years?

I know where I was when the news broke. It wasn’t something that impacted me directly, it wasn’t anywhere near a momentous moment in my life but I remember it because it was momentous to so many others. Whether you love or hate Nirvana or even if you are indifferent to them or Kurt Cobain, it’s hard not to admit they were a major, major influence in the music world. 

It was a couple of days after Easter. I was driving, listening to the radio, maybe it was Q104 at the time. Hempstead Turnpike, headed east. The DJ said something about breaking news and I knew. Everyone who was listening knew before he said it because it was coming. Given everything that had transpired in the previous weeks, it was coming. 

The DJ made the announcement then played a Nirvana song and I thought this was both the beginning and the end of things. I felt bad for the thousands of kids who looked up to him and I felt some pity toward Cobain. Maybe he never wanted to be anyone’s hero, he never wanted to be idolized, but he was. And he didn’t know what to do with that. 

People commit suicide every day. Most of them aren’t famous. Most of them will never get their death notice announced on the radio by a somber DJ and have vigils in their name. When someone this famous takes their own life, it puts a face on suicide. There are so many people out there suffering, drowning, not being heard. Being famous, being talented, being someone’s idol doesn’t ease any of that. People say, he had everything, what did he kill himself for? People who say that don’t understand depression. They are the same people who will tell a friend suffering from depression “Get over it. You have nothing to be sad about.” Putting pressure on someone to “move on” or “get on with it” or “cheer up” doesn’t help. If you have a friend that suffers from depression, the best thing you can do is arm yourself with as much information as you can about this illness so you understand them and understand the way their brain works. Be empathetic. Be a comfort. Be a friend. Don’t tell them to turn their frown upside down.

Depressed is not sad. Please remember that. Depressed is not sad.

I guess I got off topic with this. Sorry about that.

RIP, Kurt. 

Nirvana - On A Plain 

25 songs in 25 days #12: last song you heard

Yesterday, everyone was talking about the guy who covered Smells Like Teen Spirit on American Idol. Having not watched American Idol since the third season and having successfully avoided it like the plague since, I had no idea what anyone was talking about. No, you have to see this, I was told. You have to hear it. So I went to YouTube and I watched this poor schmuck strain his way through this iconic song and a few thoughts went through my head, in this order:

• What a terrible song for him to choose
• That face he’s making is combination Bruce Springsteen and constipation
• Are we sure this isn’t some kind of parody?
• This is completely horrifying for everyone involved

And then I made this sort of terrible tweet. 

It’s not like I’m this huge Nirvana/Kurt Cobain fan who thinks it’s sacrilegious to even attempt to cover a Nirvana song. It’s just that I have ears. And to anyone with ears - even someone who never heard the original - Casey Abrams (I finally made the attempt to find out his name) had breached the contract of life that says DON’T DO THINGS THAT MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRINGE.

So when I woke this morning with this leprechaun with a hipster beard’s version of Smells Like Teen Spirit in my head, I had to listen to something Cobain to wash it away.

Let me tell what I get out of listening to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged.

 They weren’t meant to be a hit machine. They weren’t meant to be pop idols. This was a band meant to say something, to mean something. It’s in the way he sang those Meat Puppets songs, especially Plateau, but you can also hear it in Something in the Way and on On a Plain. I listen to this album and I hear Cobain the superstar, Cobain the idol stripped away and you’re left with Cobain the person, and the band that Nirvana might have been if they didn’t become “the voice of a generation” with Nevermind.

Maybe if that didn’t happen, Casey the Bearded Wonder would have chosen a different song from the year he was born, like Color Me Badd’s I Wanna Sex You Up and I wouldn’t have spent the night feeling like we owe an apology to the ghost of Kurt Cobain. 

[previous songs]

Nirvana - Drain You

My favorite Nirvana song, for Kurt Cobain’s birthday.

Nirvana - Drain You

This week has been - work wise - physically, mentally and emotionally draining. Instead of giving you a 6000 word essay on why so, I’ll just give you my favorite Nirvana song instead. And then I’ll go eat some ice cream a pretend this week never, ever happened.

Nirvana - On a Plain

You know I tend to go off on themes. So, more Nirvana.

When Nevermind came out, I was one of those people who jumped on the Nirvana bandwagon. But I didn’t ride it very long. I hated the hype surrounding them, I hated all the little kids in their flannel shirts, I hated that everyone seemed to be in love with two songs and basically ignored the awesome Drain You. And I hated – really, deeply hated – the idolization of Cobain.

It wasn’t until MTV Unplugged that I fully appreciated Cobain. While a lot of the songs played that night weren’t his, I was still taken aback by the pure honesty in his voice. You could hear everything; pain, wistfulness, sorrow. And I loved that the band did their lesser known songs, and that the covers they did were of bands mostly unknown to the kids who first sunk their teeth into Nevermind. The best word I could use to describe the whole performance is intense. You listen to it, and look at it and you see and hear perhaps what Nirvana might have been if Nevermind didn’t blow up like that. They weren’t meant to be a hit machine. They weren’t meant to be pop idols. This was a band meant to say something, to mean something. It’s in the way he sang those Meat Puppets songs, especially Plateau, but you can also hear it in Something in the Way and on On a Plain, and I can’t fully describe it because it was a personal experience for me, but I listen to this album and I hear Cobain the superstar, Cobain the idol, stripped away and you’re left with Cobain the person, and the band that Nirvana might have been if they didn’t become “the voice of a generation” with Nevermind.

I became a bigger Nirvana fan after this, but it wasn’t until recently, when I pulled this CD and Incesticide and In Utero and Bleach out again, that I actually fell in love with them. I think I needed the distance of years and the absence of flannel shirts to fully immerse myself in the band.