…Nirvana's “tragedy”…

Cobain was born on the 20th of February in Hoquain. His mother was a cocktail-waitress and his father was an auto-mechanic. Cobain soon moved to nearby Aberdeen, a depressed and dying logging town.
Matters were made worse when Cobain’s parents divorced when he was seven and by his own account he said he never felt loved and secure again. He became increasingly difficult, anti-social and withdrawn…He also said that his parents’ traumatic split fuelled a lot the anguish in Nirvana’s music.
After this Cobain found himself shuttled back and forth between various relatives and at one stage homeless living under a bridge.
When Cobain was eleven he heard and was captivated by Britain’s Sex Pistols and after their self-destruction he and his friend Krist Novoselic continued to listen to the wave of British bands.
Cobain’s artistry and iconoclastic attitude didn’t win many friends in high school and sometimes earned him beatings from “jocks”, he got even by spray painting “QUEER” on their pick-up trucks.

Aberdeen

By 1985 Aberdeen was dead and Cobain’s next stop was Olympia. He formed and reformed a series of band before Nirvana came to be in 1986. Nirvana was an uneasy alliance between Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and eventually drummer and multi-instrumental Dave Grohl.
In 1989 Nirvana recorded their rough-edged first album BLEACH for local Seattle independent label Sub-Pop.
In Britain Nirvana received a lot of recognition and in 1991 their contract was bought out by Geffen, they signed to the mega-label, the first non-mainstream band to do so. Two and a half years later they released NEVERMIND, a series of different, crunching and screaming songs that along with its first single SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT would propel Nirvana to mainstrem stardom.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT became Nirvana’s most highly acclaimed and instantly recognizable song.
NEVERMIND went on to sell ten million copies and make a reported of 550 millions dollars leaving Nirvana overnight millionaires.
It quickly became obvious that the obsessively sick and sensitive 24years old was not going to cope very well with the rock’n roll lifestyle. He fell into heroin in the early 90’s, he said he used it as a shield against the rigorous demands of touring and to stop the pain of stomach ulcers or an irritated bowel. Through the touring and pressure Cobain continued to write his very personal acutely focused lyrics.
Cobain was distressed to find out that what he wrote and how it was interpreted could be quite often miles apart. He was appalled when he found out that POLLY (a heavily ironic anti-rape song) had been sung by two men as they raped a young girl. He later appealed to fans on the INCESTICIDE liner notes: “If any of you don’t like gays or women or blacks, please leave us the fuck alone”.
In February 1992 Cobain skipped off to Hawaii to marry the already pregnant Courtney Love. Later in the year Nirvana released INCESTICIDE and in August Cobain had hospital treatment for heroin abuse. Shortly after Frances Bean Cobain was born. In early 1993 IN UTERO was released into the top spot on the music charts. IN UTERO was widely acclaimed by the music press and it contains some of Cobain’s most passionate work. IN UTERO was a lot more open than Nirvana’s previous albums. Songs like ALL APOLOGIES and Heart shaped box DETAILED ASPECTS OF Kurt’s sometimes shaky marriage, other songs like SCENTLESS APPRENTICE detailed the agonies and struggles of Cobain’s experiences.
Nirvana embarked on a support tour and recorded and filmed an “unplugged” 8acoustic) performance for MTV in November of 1993. Rumours circulated that the MTV Unplugged compilation would be Nirvana’s last album and the band was splitting up.
Cobain was a gun fanatic and always had several in his possession or in various forms of confiscation. In the northern winter of 1993-94 Nirvana embarked on an extensive European tour. Twenty concerts into the tour Cobain developed throat problems and their schedule was interrupted while he recovered. While recovering Kurt flew to Rome to join his wife who was also preparing to tour with her own band.
On March the 4th Cobain was rushed to hospital in a coma after what has been labelled an unsuccessful suicide bid in which he washed down about 50 prescription painkillers with champagne. It was officially called an accident and was not even made known to close friends and associates. Several days later he returned to Seattle. Cobain’s wife, friends and managers convinced Cobain, who was still in deep distress to enter a detox program whom he fled after only a few days.
Cobain was cited in the Seattle area with a shotgun. Days later on the 5th of April Kurt Cobain went into the small room above his garage in his Seattle home and ended it all.
Cobain’s body was found when an electrician visiting the house to install a security system was walking around outside when no one answered the front door and peered through windows. He thought he saw a mannequin sprawled on the floor until he noticed a splotch of blood by Cobain’s ear. When police arrived on the scene they found Cobain with a shotgun still pointed at his chin and on a nearby counter a suicide note written in red ink addressed to Love and the couples then 19 month old daughter Frances Bean.
The suicide note ended with the words: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away…Peace, Love, Empathy…”. Two days after about 5000 people gathered in Seattle for a candlelight vigil.
Kurt Cobain was 27.