Cobain 17 Years Later

Thanks to Tony for this article.

Tim Grierson

Normally, my birthday doesn't cause me the slightest bit of alarm. That all changed when I turned 27. This, like several key moments in

my early life, was the direct result of Kurt Cobain's influence on me.

When you're a teenager, you're desperately grasping for older role models. They've lived more life and experienced things you haven't yet. Basically, they've got it more together than you do. In hindsight, saying that Cobain symbolized those qualities for me might seem horribly naive, but you'll have to take my word for it -- and I certainly wasn't the only one who felt this way.

Before his suicide, Cobain represented a heightened version

of my fledgling creative self, or so I flattered myself to believe. I didn't want to be a rock star, and I have forever found Courtney Love repellent, but Cobain exuded a brave, funny, likable sincerity that meshed with a tremendous talent for songwriting and performance, equal parts loud and tender. (Go back to In Utero and MTV Unplugged in New York. What other band achieved such extremes in volume in the span of a year?) A gifted popular artist, he played the game but did it better than all the poseurs and sell-outs who usually get the platinum plaques and nail the chicks. Cobain's success meant that, hey, maybe I had a chance in the world.

Kurt, of course, did not see his stardom that way.

When Rolling Stone published its (little-did-we-know) final interview with Cobain in early 1994, the drug/breakup rumors were rampant, and so the Nirvana Nation sought any encouraging sign possible. And Cobain happily obliged, telling reporter David Fricke that he had stopped doing heroin, gotten healthy, discovered contentment in his baby daughter, and could foresee a future for himself and his band.

Cobain was gonna make it.

I wanted to believe it, he wanted me to believe it, but he lied to both of us.

He died a few months later at the age of 27.

I wasn't yet 20 when Cobain killed himself, and so 27 seemed a long way off. (Shielded by the warm, protective bubble of college, you tend to treat most of real life as something a long way off.) But when I hit that fateful age -- the same age that brought the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison -- I finally understood why people got gloomy about another candle on the cake. Hardly a perfectly adjusted, wholly wonderful person myself at 27, I somehow sensed that I had reached a pivotal moment in my faithful adoration of Cobain.

Initially, my birthday felt like the beginning of the end. When you use music as a spiritual guide and therapist, you find yourself inextricably linked to the artist. Not only do you relate to the singer, you start to turn to the songs for counseling and direction: What would Kurt do? My close connection with Cobain presumed I would always feel and experience life as he did. But once I realized I had no intention of putting a gun to my head at age 27, I broke the bond between the awkward kid and the cool older role model. And now there were no Nirvana songs to tell me what to do next. So it was time for a little reevaluation.

When you're a kid, you emulate your big brother. When you grow up, you see him more clearly. Cobain was an enormous talent -- no passage of time changes that fact -- but his downfall now seems less tragic, less mythic. Suicide, as Cobain must have surmised, creates an aura of artistic "legitimacy," a permanent punctuation mark to a career and a life more perfect than a thousand Neverminds. But what seemed "cool" in my adolescence rings false now. Cobain's suicide note -- filled with complaints about not being able to feel the joy of music anymore -- only offers lame excuses. The life of an artist requires courage, requires the individual to struggle in order to find his creative voice despite considerable obstacles. The best work comes from such doubt and anguish: In Utero gives me comfort for that very reason; every howl cleanses and liberates the soul. Why didn't he realize that?

When Cobain died, music critics pointed to his lyrics as bracing proof that he had planned this exit for a while:

One more special message to go
And then I'm done and I can go home

I'd rather be dead than cool

Look on the bright side, suicide

With 10 years hindsight, and with my own 20s in the rearview mirror, those words remain indelible blueprints for the confusion and anger of youth. But they aren't words worth living for. I'll take the unpredictable, lengthy careers of Neil Young, Lou Reed, Warren Zevon, Prince and Bob Dylan over the wham-bam mercurial genius of a Nirvana. Ten years ago, I would have scoffed at anybody who dared to speak such blasphemy. But 10 years ago, these lines from Pavement would have meant nothing to me either:

Simply put, I want to grow old
Dying does not meet my expectations
Let's drink a toast to all those who arrived alive

Stephen Malkmus, a smart guy in it for the long haul, wrote that when he turned 30. I can't wait to see what he has to say at 50.

Tim Grierson is an editor of The Simon, a weekly online publication of culture, politics, and humor.