“Don’t read my diary when I’m gone. OK, I’m going to work now. When you wake up this morning, please read my diary. Look through my things and figure me out.” So begins Kurt Cobain’s private journals.
Writing a review of someone’s journal is an exceedingly hard thing to do. How do you critique someone’s private thoughts and feelings? But to write a review of Kurt Cobain’s journal is even harder to do considering he probably never wanted it to be published. Or maybe he did. His contradictory statements are everywhere in the journals and he knows it. He meant to do it. One will probably never figure out Kurt Cobain, and I think that was his point.
Last week 28 of his private notebooks, which his wife Courtney Love sold for $4 million, were published.
Erik Erlanderson, bassist for Love’s band, Hole, took the diaries after Cobain’s suicide and had them in safekeeping. Later, biographer Charles Cross came to Love’s house to discuss her late husband. While dodging Cross’s questions, Love told Cross that he should just read Cobain’s diaries. Cross later added excerpts from the diaries to his book, “Heavier than Heaven: A biography of Kurt Cobain.”
While the beginnings of the journals and court cases over rights to the upcoming boxed-set seemed trite and trivial, the publishing of Cobain’s journal brings the reader both insight and despair. Cobain holds nothing back. He reveals himself to be a man aware of himself and his place in recording history, though he despises the term “alternative rock,” which Nirvana helped put on the map.
“There are a lot of bands who claim to be alternative and they’re nothing but stripped down, ex sunset strip hair farming bands of a few years ago. I would love to be erased from our association with Pearl Jam or the Nymphs and other first time offenders,” writes Cobain.
In the middle of the book are pages after pages of lyrics. It’s almost eerie to see the words in his left-handed scrawl, written down on plain notebook paper, after hearing them performed so many times. By reading the journals it seems his most laborious song was “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Cobain writes, crosses out and rewrites, often calling himself stupid seemingly because he is trying to make the song the anthem it became.
Reading the lyrics printed on the spiral-bound notebook is almost like spying into his thoughts. Most times you can read the lyrics he had crossed out and replaced. The final version of the song has the chorus and various lyrics while a lot of the lyrics have been rewritten even further. It seems Cobain knew the power of the song, wanting it to perfectly explain the punk rock feeling of youth he had. Notes of video treatments of pep rallies and cheerleaders wearing anarchy symbols spill out on the sides.
It turns out Cobain wasn’t the slacker the media perceived him to be. Throughout the journal are concepts for videos and T-shirt designs. Cobain drew pictures and comics frequently in his journal. “Elvis Cooper” has a drawing of Elvis in his Las Vegas attire while draping a snake around his neck.
Cobain also comes through as a more serious musician than thought of when he was alive. He spent his childhood practicing his guitar five times a day. He taught himself the guitar by playing “Louie Louie.”
“Uh, Gee I guess what I’m trying to say is: Theory is a waste of time. Dorian modes are for technically anal boys with bad values. Make up your own music,” he writes.
Cobain fired a drummer early on because he couldn’t make practice everyday. In a letter dated May 29, 1988, Cobain writes, “A band needs to practice, in our opinion, at least 5 times a week if the band ever expect to accomplish anything.”
Cobain’s honesty and sincerity in his journals are everywhere in his writing. Cobain often writes about the state of music today and how he wants to change it. He often wrote drafts of letters sometimes unsent. This excerpt comes from a letter to the Editor:
“I thought I would let the world know how much I love people. I thought I would try to create something that I would personally like to listen to because a very large portion of this world’s arts sucks beyond description.”
The journals bring out Cobain’s odd, oftentimes ironic humor. The early parts of the journals are more light and humorous. Cobain includes his resume, which consists mainly of menial janitorial jobs paying $4.50 an hour. He wrote his own commercial for the Pine Tree Janitorial Service where he and bandmate Kris Noveselic worked. He drew pictures of himself pushing a vacuum, calling the company, “Friendly, prompt, and clean commercial maintenance.”
Cobain’s humor and sincerity is the jewel of his journals. He often begins his journal entries with “Hi!” He often pretends he is being interviewed by teeny-bopper magazines and answers their questions with “Hi, I’m the moody, bohemian member of the group. Blonde frontman. The sensetive (sic) artist type. I like: pasta, turtles, girls with weird eyes, writing.”
The later part of the journal includes a dark and hurt side of Cobain. He writes about his stomach ailments and his drug addictions.
“I bought a gun but used heroin instead,” he writes.
Eight years after Cobain’s death the publishing of the journal seems anti-climatic. What more does the public need to know about a man who loved to write and perform his own music?