Browsing YouTube recently, I came across a video from The Nerdwriter called, “Polly: Nirvana’s Darkest Song.”
I wasn’t into Nirvana when the band was huge. I found their sound, like a lot of grunge/garage of the era, a bit too ratty and melodiless.
In the video, Nerdwriter mentions front man Kurt Cobain’s journals. I literally stopped the video right then, swiped over to the Amazon app, found and bought Cobain’s journals. Why? Everyone who knows me knows that not only have I curated journals since 1978 (when Cobain was just 11), but also that I read all the journals I can find, from friends who shared theirs with me or gave them to me, to famous journalers like Anaîs Nin or Franz Kafka.
I read Cobain’s suicide note years ago, and it left me wanting more, and more than just music.
Today I got a fat book in the mail. It is photos of his journal pages, which, honestly, is beyond cool. It is messy, chaotic, vulgar, brilliant, interesting. I will dig in with my multi-colored highlighters, and attempt to decode the journal of this troubled, complex, dark soul. Watch this space for a review.
This looks interesting. I’ve never really been a huge fan of the guy either, but I’m curious to know what you’ll find. Speaking of journals, are you a David Sedaris fan? His collection of journals is supposed to be really fun, my wife said she really enjoyed it.
Kurt’s impact on music is an indeliable part of musical history. Like him or hate him, there is absolutely no denying that both his life and death sent reverberations throughout the future. To this day, he’s an escape for depressed teens, and with the release of his journals, that’s taken up a notch. Kids related to him so much back then because of the anger and hurt his vocals clearly portrayed; kids relate to him now because of the same reasons, but now they havethe context of his journal entries and suicide. There are still people that celebrate him on the anniversary of his death. Kurt Cobain made what is arguably one of the biggest impacts on music. He’s part of the 27-club. Who don’t we remember from that club? Who isn’t worshipped to some degree? Death in this case is immortality, and Cobain is sitting on Musical Olympus
I hope this endeavor turns out to be worthwhile for you, in some way.
Personally, I never had much fascination with Cobain, or in reading strangers’ journals (with rare exceptions). But I did, around the age of 26, have a morbid curiosity about the so-called 27 club, though at the time I was thinking of Joplin, Morrison, Hendrix, etc., and didn’t realize Cobain was on the same list.