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Kurt Donald Cobain, was born into a tumultuous mid-working class home. At the tender age of seven, he was abandoned by his father. This feeling of abandonment, and the subsequent depression that followed, persisted throughout the life of Cobain. After a few years in the underground of the music world, Cobain emerged upon the stage of the world's consciousness, fronting his band "Nirvana". The band's album "Nevermind" was heralded as revolutionary and inspiring, by both critics and fans alike. Life was going well for Cobain, as evidenced in his satirical drawl, and smugly pleased face that was splattered upon "Rolling Stone", and "MTV" among other mediums of media. The music that he made was generally upbeat,though seemingly confusing. The song "Come as you are", is a prime example. The title, taken from the evangelical invitation takes on the form of both a question and an answer. The beginning lines "Come as you are/as you were/as I wanted you to be/as a trend as friend/ as an old endemy", takes on the form a patriarch,(church father, or birth father)while searing biting truth about the worthlesness of the congregation. The "congregation", seems to have been created, by an abstraction of the author. The final line "As I've no memories", is indicative of the repressive blunting of this overwhelming feeling of worthlesness. The refrain sounds like the half-way stifled scream of an infant. A scream that is stifled by the dimensions of the infant's diaphragm, rather than its desire to scream. The refrain "When I swear that I don't have a God", which blends into "Gun", shows the inability of Cobain to find acceptance with his father, as well as his inability to fulfill the Oedipal fantasy of killing his father,i.e. gun. The sentence is but a half of one. By his father's act of abandonment, Cobain became unable to assert himself in a healthy manner. The violent impulses that he felt towards his father, would then be redirected toward himself. He was caught somewhere between the "Imp of the Perverse"of his sub-conscious, and the will to survive that is conscious. As sick as this may seem,the music was far from the dire, pain ridden abstractions that would be found on Nirvana's "In Utero".
Debuting in '93, "In Utero" was also well acclaimed. However, something had changed in both the lyrics and the music. What had happened in the period between "Nevermind", and "In Utero" is a matter of great scholastic debate, though what is certain is the fact that something had definitely and unalterably changed. The album was sickly and generously imbued with stark portraits of infanticide i.e. "Pennyroyal tea", and childhood abandonment i.e. "Serve the Servants", that stood out and loudly screamed into your ear amidst a background of moschistic admonitions of failure. In "Very Ape", he speaks openly of the act of suicide, with a real, immenent, honesty. "Look on the bright side suicide". He had taken a dangerous ride to its consummation. He had now absconded the duties of self-preservation, and resolved to die. Sadly, the pain seemed too much to bare. He grew away from his family and his band, and amidst rumours of the band's separation, he loudly took his life. Not with an overdose, asphyxiation, or an indefinite act, but with a resolved gunshot to the head. He had finally resolved the trauma that he received from abandonment, but sadly it came with a price. He did not find help in relationships, or consultations with friends, and he left a ballad of musical medleys, which seen as a whole, tell a story that rivals the greatest tradgedy ever written. I wonder if Claudius feels any guilt.
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