Kurt Cobain

Enthusio and I were driving somewhere last weekend, listening to the radio, and Nirvana's All Apologies came on. That's a damn good song. "Buried, buried, married." Very expressive. When the song was done, the DJ came on and said something like, "You know, sometimes I think about how Kurt's not around anymore and I still get pissed off. I mean, what kind of music would he be making now? I don't know, but I bet it would be good." I knew exactly what the guy meant. I really would like to hear what Nirvana, or maybe just Kurt, would be making now.

I didn't get Nirvana at first. The first time I ever heard of them was when this girl Allison with whom I worked in college started talking about them. Now, I liked Allison well enough, but I didn't exactly buy her cultural preferences. She was the first persion I knew with a facial piercing (eyebrow, I think). That was out there in 1992. Super dark black dyed hair. Ended up moving to Uzbekistan in the Peace Corps. Anyway, she started talking about Nirvana and when they finally came on the radio at work and Allison pointed out who they were, I thought, "God, this sucks." It was "Smells Like Teen Spirit," of course, and my ears just weren't ready for it. It sounded like total musical chaos to me. But I came around, although I still liked Pearl Jam better.

Now the more I listen to Nirvana's music, the more I appreciate it. The music is great and the lyrics -- when you can understand them, of course -- are very good, too. How many bands had the cojones to start a song "Sell the kids for food" like Nirvana did in In Bloom? Not many, I think. It certainly gets across a serious level of desperation. I have even come to recognize that Nirvana really was a better band than Pearl Jam. Nirvana's music was more innovative, its lyrics were more poetically incomplete (where they sing little bits and phrases and you fill in the rest with your mind -- like getting across total disillusionment with "oh well, whatever, never mind").

But Pearl Jam is still around. Not only that, but after years in the wilderness, Pearl Jam has a damn fine new CD out there. I listen to it frequently. There's some great stuff on that. "The lights of the city, they look good while speeding, gonna leave them far behind, because this time, I'm gone." "Unemployable" is a great song. (I don't think, however, that Pearl Jam will ever have a better lyric than the following from "I Wish": "I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro's hood." Not just the moon, but the full moon, when people go crazy. Not just a car, not just a fast car, but a Camaro, traditional choice of Jim Rockford and mulleted men everywhere. That must have been a seriously well-waxed Camaro, too, to get that kind of shine on the hood.)

Nirvana isn't ever going to have that. We are never going to know what Kurt Cobain would have written about George W. Bush. We are never going to know what Kurt Cobain would have written about his inevitable divorce from Courtney Love. We are never going to know what Kurt Cobain would have written when we decided that he wanted to write a song like "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" about Frances Bean.

Dave Grohl has made some really good music with Foo Fighters. I hope Krist Novoselic is having fun on the dark side of the moon or whatever he is. But Kurt Cobain and Nirvana are gone, have been gone a long time and it makes me sad. When The Mermaid was born, both The Muse and I wondered, "Can you be a parent and still listen to Nirvana?" The answer is yes and I wish Nirvana was still around.