My Nirvana Experience
- Joi :)
- Apr 29, 2017
- 5 min read
Now, before I get too much into this topic, I should clarify that Nirvana is more than just a band from the late eighties and early nineties that exploded the grunge scene into the mainstream and unintentionally cultivated a cloud of cliches such as plaid flannels, cigarettes, and beat-up converse sneakers. Nirvana is more than their overplayed song "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which came off their second album, Nevermind, and in my opinion, isn't even their best song. Most importantly, Nirvana is more than the death of its lead singer and guitarist, Kurt Cobain, who devastatingly took his own life away on April 5, 1994. The story of Nirvana is probably the most genuine, exciting, heartfelt, emotional, and inspiring story I have ever come to discover in my life. After reading some pages of Kurt's journal of his thoughts, feelings and music ideas, after watching the documentary Montage of Heck (which Kurt's daughter Frances Bean Cobain co-produced) and Sonic Highways (which Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl created with his band the Foo Fighters), and after listening to and becoming familiar with every one of their songs, interviews, and concerts, I can truly say these three things about it:
1. Nirvana was a miracle to me - their controversial music highlighted many problems in society
2. All of the band members, and their friends and family, have inspired me in one way or another. They each have their own individual story to tell, and
3. Kurt Donald Cobain was such a genuine person with a heart of gold, a great sense of humor, a genius mind, and the will power to stand up for the rights of others.
Kurt, you will forever be missed and loved. Your music has gotten me through some rough times in life. It's a shame that I wasn't alive to ever have seen you in concert, but it's a blessing that I am able to play your music today and know who you are, just through your music. I first got into listening to Nirvana my freshman year of high school, and I don't know where I'd be now if they had never happened.
I can clearly remember the day I became an active listener of Nirvana. It was only a few years ago: June of 2014. My friends and I decided to perform the Jimmy Eat World song "The Middle" at a jam-session concert at my high school, and oh boy, did we sound bad! My friend was playing an out-of-tune acoustic guitar while I sang with the voice of the nervous fifteen year old girl that I was at the time. We laughed at ourselves afterward because we knew it was so bad, but the important thing was that we tried our best to push through the stage fright. After we left the stage, a band from my high school played some songs really well, and my other friends were shouting at them to play "Rape Me" because they thought it would be funny at a school event. After this jam-session concert, I went home and wrote down a list of all the bands that had been covered at the concert that I had never listened to before, and Nirvana was one of them. Although Nirvana is famous all over the world and I had heard some of their most popular songs like "Lithium," "Dumb," "All Apologies," "Sliver," and of course "Smells Like Teen Spirit," on the car radio before, I had never really known anything about their band members or their other songs. Heck! I didn't even know all of those songs were by the same artist! That shows how little exposure I had with the music world at the time. The extent of my previous music listening history was whatever my mom, dad, or older sister listened to (my mom introduced me to U2, the Police, the Killers - my dad introduced me to Earth Wind and Fire, Micheal Jackson, and various christian gospel and christian rock bands - my older sister introduced me to the Fray, Paramore, and many other alternative pop rock bands of the time like Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! at the Disco).
Once I discovered Nirvana, that was the start of me building my own music library and choosing what music I was into most. And although it took me a week or two to start memorizing lyrics, trust me when I say that I was immediately hooked. I was intrigued by the mystery of it all, the freedom that their music gave me to make my own meaning out of it. To me, Nirvana was still underground and away from the mainstream of music (at least it was different than the pop, dubstep, and rap that most of my peers listened to). It brought a whole new genre of music into my world that awoke my imagination. And I wanted to know more. I started watching more and more of their concerts on Youtube (by the way, Live at Paramount the night of Halloween is still my favorite), I read more Tumblr posts and Instagram posts about them, and I researched interviews online to get a true picture of who they were and what they were about. Learning about Kurt's early childhood, the coming of age story of his band, all of the empowering things he believed in, and the tragedy of his drug addictions and his death, I feel like I truly got to know who he was and I feel as though I was alive in the late 80's, early 90's, even though I wasn't born until 1998. Just like Nirvana's Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" out of the No. 1 spot in Billboard's top 100 in 1992, my favorite song quickly switched over from the Jackson 5 song "I Want You Back," to Nirvana's "All Apologies" (Kurt's home demo recorded version is my favorite). And still to this day, I am in love with the amazing person that Kurt was, and the inspiring people that Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear, Courtney Love, Frances Bean Cobain, etc. are. I bought my first (acoustic) guitar this past January and I am improving so quickly because of the inspiration I hear every time I listen to your music. I've been writing my own music since I was seven years old, and some of my songs I can actually play on guitar now because I find your life story so encouraging.
Kurt, you followed your dreams and showed people that alternative music is just as beautiful, if not, more beautiful, than pop music, and although you hit many difficulties along the way, you lived a good life all in all. Although you were too humble and worrisome to want the popularity and power that your fans had given you, you made something so sacred and amazing out of the crappy turn of events that life kept throwing at you. Just like the Terry Jack's song goes: "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time." And Kurt, you were way ahead of your time, you saw the vision, you made it come true, and your music is still being heard today :)
Kurt Donald Cobain
February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994
Rest in Peace
P.S. ~ if you want to see more of my love for Nirvana, feel free to follow my Instagram account @grungestur
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