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Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – ca.
April 5, 1994) was the lead singer and guitarist
of the American Grunge music|grunge band Nirvana
(band)|Nirvana.  He served not only as the band's
frontman, but as its "leader and spiritual center"
ref|spiritualcenter.  With the band's success,
Cobain became a major national celebrity, an
uncomfortable position for someone who claimed to
be "ill at ease with fame and ill-equipped to
handle the responsibility that accompanies
success" ref|fame.

Cobain and Nirvana were highly influential,
popularizing what came to be known as grunge
music.  The arrival of Cobain's best known song,
"Smells Like Teen Spirit", marked the beginning of
a dramatic shift of popular music away from the
perceived superficiality of 1980s glam-metal and
dance-pop that placed visual style over musical
substance.  The music media eventually awarded
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" "anthem-of-a-generation"
status ref|anthemgeneration, and, with it, Cobain
ascendance as the "spokesman" for Generation X.

Among other well known Cobain songs are "Lithium
(song)|Lithium", "About a Girl", "Polly
(song)|Polly", "In Bloom", "Come As You Are",
"Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies", and the
controversial "Rape Me".

==Early life==
Cobain was born weighing 7lb 7.5oz in Grays Harbor
Community Hospital, Aberdeen, Washington and spent
his early years in Hoquiam, Washington.  By most
accounts, Cobain's earliest years were happy, and
he lived as a part of the typical American family.
 Cobain's first interest in music came early in
his life, possibly a result of his family's
general interest in music.

At around age seven, Cobain began to idolize
stuntman Evel Knievel.  Hoping to one day become a
stuntman, Kurt was often seen diving from the roof
top onto a bed of pillows and blankets.  During
this time, he was prescribed Ritalin for
hyperactivity.  Years later, wife Courtney Love
blamed Methylphenidate|Ritalin for Cobain's
addiction to heroin.

Cobain's life was turned upside down at the age of
eight with the divorce of his parents.  Cobain
later cited his parents' divorce as having a
profound impact on his life.  His mother noted
that his personality changed dramatically, with
Cobain becoming more withdrawn.  After a year of
living with his mother following the divorce,
Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with
his father.  After a few years with his father,
Cobain's rebellious tendencies became too
overwhelming, and Cobain found himself being
shuffled between friends and family.

At school Cobain didn't take much interest in
academics or sports, mostly focusing on his art
courses. He was an outspoken supporter of
Homosexuality|gay students at his school,
sometimes suffering physically at the hands of
homophobia|homophobic students for his beliefs. 
Although he once claimed in an interview with The
Advocate that he was arrested for spray-painting a
pro-gay slogan on a bank, Aberdeen police records
show that the phrase he was arrested for in 1986
was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit"
ref|graffiti.

In a February 1992 interview with The Advocate,
Cobain admitted that he thought he was gay while
in high school and stated, "I could be bisexual. 
If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably
would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle." 
In his journals, he wrote that he was
heterosexual, but wished he was gay just "to piss
off homophobes" ref|gay.  When Nirvana appeared on
Saturday Night Live in January of 1992, Cobain and
Novoselic jokingly "kissed" during the cast and
crew farewells as the credits rolled.  (Cobain and
Novoselic bobbed their heads back and forth wildly
as if in rapture; Novoselic and Dave_Grohl|Grohl
subsequently repeated the gesture.)  The segment
was cut from the show on further airings, replaced
by the closing credits from the rehearsal taping,
and never aired again.

As a teenager with a chaotic home life growing up
in small town Washington (state)|Washington,
Cobain eventually found escape through the
thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to
punk rock shows in Seattle.  Cobain formed a
lifelong friendship with fellow Montesano
musicians The Melvins, whose music later heavily
influenced Nirvana's sound.  Cobain had a small
"K" inside a shield tattooed on his forearm, the
insignia of Olympia, Washington, label K Records,
largely chosen for the coincidental ellipsis of
his name.

In his youth, Cobain spent a lot of time reading
in the local library, discovering such
literature|literary figures as William S.
Burroughs, whose cut-up technique Cobain
occasionally utilised to write lyrics for some of
Nirvana's songs.  Cobain eventually had the
opportunity to record with Burroughs a spoken word
with guitar improvisation piece called The Priest
They Called Him, whose words were originally one
of Burroughs' short stories out of The
Exterminator. Other literary works which impacted
Cobain's philosophy included Perfume by Patrick
Süskind and the SCUM Manifesto by Valerie
Solanas.

Two weeks before his graduation, Cobain dropped
out of high school after realizing that he had too
many credits to complete. His mother gave him an
ultimatum: either get a job or leave. After a week
or so, Cobain found his clothes and other
belongings packed away in boxes.  Forced out of
his mother's home, Cobain often stayed at friends'
houses and snuck into his mother's basement every
now and then. When Cobain could not find anywhere
else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the
Wishkah River, a period later chronicled in the
Nevermind track "Something in the Way".

==Nirvana==
Cobain received his first guitar from his uncle at
age fourteen.  He was given the choice of a guitar
or a bicycle, and chose the guitar.  From there,
he tried to form bands with friends, generally
noodling on songs by AC/DC and Led Zeppelin.  When
he moved back in with his mother in high school,
he found himself without anyone to jam with, as
none of his friends had any musical talent.

Later in high school, Cobain met Krist Novoselic,
a fellow devotee of punk rock.  A few years later,
Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band
with him by lending him a copy of a home demo
recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. 
After months of prodding, Novoselic finally agreed
to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana
(band)|Nirvana.

For the first few years of Nirvana, Novoselic and
Cobain found themselves host to a rotating list of
drummers.  Eventually, the band settled on Chad
Channing, with whom the band recorded the album
Bleach (album)|Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records
in 1989.  Cobain, however, became dissatisfied
with Channing's style, eventually leading the band
to Dave Grohl.  With Grohl, the band found their
greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut,
Nevermind.

Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success
of Nirvana with his underground rock|underground
roots.  He also felt persecuted by the media,
comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored
resentment for people who claimed to be fans of
the band but who completely missed the point of
the band's message.  One particularly distressing
incident to Cobain involved two men who raped a
woman while singing the Nirvana song "Polly
(song)|Polly". Cobain condemned the episode in the
liner notes of the album Incesticide:  "Last year,
a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs
while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I
have a hard time carrying on knowing there are
plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so
anal retentive|anally Political correctness|P.C.
but that's the way I feel."

==Marriage==

Kurt Cobain first encountered Courtney Love at a
concert in 1989.  More than a year later, after
learning from Dave Grohl that she and Kurt shared
mutual crushes, Courtney began pursuing Cobain. 
After a few weeks of on-again, off-again
courtship, the two found themselves together on a
regular basis, often bonding through drug use.

Around the time of Nirvana's 1992 performance on
Saturday Night Live, Love discovered that she was
pregnant with Cobain's child.  A few days after
the conclusion of Nirvana's Australian tour, on
Monday, February 24, 1992, Cobain married Love on
Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.  On August 18, the couple's
daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born . The
unusual middle name was given to her because
Cobain thought she looked like a bean on the first
Medical ultrasonography|sonogram he saw of her.
Her namesake is Frances McKee of The Vaselines, of
whom Cobain was a big fan.

Love was somewhat unpopular with Nirvana fans. Her
harshest critics cited Cobain's total devotion to
her, combined with what they saw as her
domineering personality and inferior musical
talent, as evidence that she was merely using him
as a vehicle to make herself famous.  Critics who
compared Cobain to John Lennon were also fond of
comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist to this
day that Cobain wrote most of the songs on Hole's
breakthrough album Live Through This. However,
except for a rough mix of "Asking for It" that
contains Cobain singing backing vocals, there is
no evidence to prove the assertion. It is worth
noting that, until Nirvana's stratospheric success
with Nevermind, both bands had virtually the same
commercial stature. In fact, Hole was the more
popular band on the club circuit in the months
prior to Neverminds release.

In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity
Fair, Love admitted to using heroin while
(unknowingly) pregnancy|pregnant, an admission
that seriously damaged her public standing.  While
Cobain and Love's romance had been something of a
media attraction before the article was published,
they found themselves constantly hounded by
tabloid reporters, many wanting to know if Frances
was addicted to drugs at birth. The notoriety of
the article even resulted in Child Welfare
Services launching an investigation into the
couple's fitness as parents.  The investigation
was eventually dismissed, but not without a
significant amount of legal wrangling.  Love,
along with Cobain, claimed that Vanity Fair took
her words out of context.

==Musical influences==

Cobain was a devoted champion of early alternative
rock acts. He would often make reference to his
favourite bands in interviews, more often than not
placing a greater importance on the bands that
influenced him than on his own music.  Interviews
with Cobain were often littered with references to
obscure performers like The Vaselines, Daniel
Johnston, The Meat Puppets, the Pixies, Young
Marble Giants, The Wipers, and The Raincoats. 
Nirvana even made a habit of covering songs by
those bands.  Cobain was eventually able to
convince Nirvana's record company Geffen Records
to reissue albums by The Raincoats and The
Vaselines. 

Cobain also made efforts to include his favorite
performers in his musical endeavors.  In 1993,
when Kurt decided that he wanted a second
guitarist to help him on stage, he recruited Pat
Smear of the legendary Los Angeles,
California|L.A. punk band The Germs.  When
rehearsals of three Meat Puppets covers for
Nirvana's 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged in
New York|MTV Unplugged went awry, Cobain placed a
call to the two lead members of the band, Curt
Kirkwood|Curt and Cris Kirkwood, who ended up
joining the band on stage to perform the songs. 

Where Sonic Youth had served to help Nirvana gain
wider success, Nirvana attempted to help other
indie acts attain success.  The band submitted the
song "Oh, the Guilt" to a split single with
Chicago's The Jesus Lizard, helping Nirvana's
indie credibility while opening The Jesus Lizard
to a wider audience.  

One of Cobain's earliest and most important
musical influences was none other than The
Beatles. Cobain expressed a particular fondness
for John Lennon, whom he called his "idol" in his
journals.  Cobain even admitted that his song
"About A Girl" was essentially an attempt to write
a Beatles song.  Cobain also found himself heavily
influenced by punk rock, as he often credited
Black Flag and The Sex Pistols for his artistic
style and attitude.

"All the hype the Sex Pistols had was totally
deserved. They deserved everything they got.
Johnny Rotten was the one I identified with--he
was the sensitive one. Never Mind The Bollocks has
the best production of any rock record I have ever
heard. It’s totally in-your-face and
compressed." -- Kurt Cobain, Nirvana (Vox Magazine
September 1992)

Even with all of Cobain's indie influences,
Nirvana's early style was clearly influenced by
the major rock bands of the 1970s|70s, including
Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss (band)|Kiss.
 In its early days, Nirvana made regular habit of
playing cover songs by those bands, including
Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" and "Dazed and
Confused", and a studio recording of Kiss' "Do You
Love Me".

==Addiction and death==

Throughout most of his life, Cobain battled
depression, chronic bronchitis, and intense
physical pain due to a chronic stomach condition. 
Cobain spent years seeking the cause for his
stomach pain. However, none of the doctors he
consulted were able to pinpoint the specific
cause, guessing that it was either a result of
Cobain's childhood scoliosis or related to the
stresses of performing.  Feeling that he had been
let down by medical science, Cobain opted to
self-medicate with heroin.

Cobain's first taste of heroin came sometime late
in 1990.  For months, Cobain used the drug
casually, but it did not take long for his use to
devolve into full-fledged addiction.  Toward the
end of 1991, his use began affecting the band's
support of Nevermind, with Cobain
unconsciousness|passing out during photo shoots as
a result of the drug.  On the band's 1992
performance on Saturday Night Live, Cobain's eyes
appeared to be sunken into his head, a clear sign
that he had shot up earlier in the evening.

Cobain's heroin addiction increased further as the
years progressed.  Cobain's first attempt at rehab
came in early 1992, not long after he and Courtney
discovered they were going to become parents. 
Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked
on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing
pale and gaunt while suffering through
withdrawals.  Not long after returning home,
Cobain's addiction resurfaced.

Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in
New York, New York|New York City in July of 1993,
Cobain suffered a heroin overdose.  Rather than
calling for an ambulance, wife Courtney Love
injected Cobain with an illegal drug to bring him
out of his unconscious state.  Cobain proceeded to
perform with Nirvana on what later was recognized
as one of their more memorable performances.  The
public was given no hint that anything out of the
ordinary had taken place.

While embarking on a European tour in support of
In Utero, Kurt suffered another bout of
bronchitis, and was given a prescription for
Rohypnol.  On March 6, 1994, in Rome, Kurt
overdose|overdosed on a combination of champagne
and Rohypnol, which Love later insisted publicly
was Cobain's first suicide attempt.  (The doctor
who treated Cobain's overdose noted in a press
conference that the combination appeared
accidental.)  Cobain returned home, and soon faced
his friends and family at an intervention
(counseling)|intervention over his continuing
heroin addiction.  Given everything that had
happened, Cobain agreed to check into rehab.

A few days after arriving at rehab in California,
Cobain told the nurses that he was going out for a
smoke.  After finishing it, he jumped over the
facility's six-foot wall, caught the next flight
back to Seattle, Washington|Seattle, and dropped
off the radar.  In the ensuing days, he hung out
occasionally with longtime friend Dylan Carlson,
and once bumped into friend and famed Seattle
photographer Charles Peterson.  However, most of
his friends and family were unaware of his
whereabouts, eventually pushing his wife and
mother to file a missing persons report and hire a
private investigator to find him.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered in
the spare room above the garage (referred to as
"the greenhouse") at his Lake Washington home by
Veca Electric employee Gary Smith.  Smith arrived
at the house that morning to install security
lighting and saw the body lying inside.  Apart
from a minor amount of blood coming out of
Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no visible
signs of trauma, and initially believed that
Cobain was asleep.  Smith found what he thought
might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through
it beneath an overturned flowerpot.  A shotgun,
purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found
at Cobain's side.  An autopsy report later
concluded Cobain's death as a result of a
self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.  The
report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5,
1994.

In the alleged suicide note, ostensibly written to
Cobain's imaginary childhood friend "Boddah",
Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "Hey,
Hey, My, My": "It's better to burn out than to
fade away." Cobain's use of the lyric had a
profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of
his 1994 album Sleeps With Angels in Cobain's
memory.

Cobain was cremation|cremated, with one third of
his ashes scattered in a Buddhist temple in New
York, another third in the Wishkah River, and the
rest left in Love's possession.

==Suicide dispute==
Cobain is legally recognized to have committed
suicide.  Many, however, dispute the Seattle
Police Department|Seattle Police Department's
report, and believe that Cobain was murdered.   

The first to publicly object to the report of
suicide was Seattle public access host Richard
Lee.  The day that Cobain's body was discovered,
Lee climbed a tree outside Cobain's garage with a
camcorder and filmed the area around Cobain's
body.  A week later, Lee aired the first episode
of an ongoing documentary covering Cobain's death,
insisting that Cobain was murdered.  The series
continued for several years.

In addition, Tom Grant, a private investigator
employed by Love after Cobain's disappearance from
rehab, adamantly believes that Cobain's death was
a homicide.  Grant was hired by Love to find
Cobain after his disappearance from rehab, and was
still under her employ when Cobain's body was
found.  Grant cites the official toxicology
report, which claims that Cobain's heroin level
was three times the lethal dosage at the time of
his death, as the key piece of evidence for
murder.  Grant argues that Cobain could not have
injected himself, rolled down his sleeves, put his
needle and spoon away, and still have been able to
pull the trigger with such a dose.  Grant also
believes that the apparent suicide note was
actually a letter announcing his intent to leave
Courtney Love, Seattle, and the music business. 
Grant and a number of handwriting experts contend
that the final lines of the note that most sound
like a suicide note are written in a style that is
jarringly different from the rest of the letter. 
In addition, Grant suggests that if the shotgun
that Cobain used were positioned to match the
findings of the autopsy report, his arm would have
been too short for him to reach the trigger. 
Cobain would have had to fire the weapon with his
toe, yet he was found with both shoes still in
place.  Many, however, see Grant as an
opportunist, noting that he capitalized on Kurt's
death by selling "kits" about the conspiracy via
his website.

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield decided to investigate
the story for himself, and took a film crew to
visit a number of people associated with Cobain
and Love, including Love's father, Cobain's aunt,
and one of the couple's former nannies.  Most
notably, Broomfield spoke to a man named El Duce,
who claimed that Courtney had offered him $50,000
to kill Cobain, and passed a polygraph
administered by well-regarded polygraph expert Dr.
Edward Gelb.  Broomfield inadvertently captured El
Duce's last interview, as he died under mysterious
circumstances days later.  Broomfield titled the
finished documentary Kurt & Courtney, and it was
released in 1998.  In the end, however, Broomfield
felt he hadn't uncovered enough evidence to
conclude the existence of a conspiracy.

Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a
similar path and attempted to investigate the
conspiracy for themselves.  Their initial work,
the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? drew a
similar conclusion to Broomfield's film: while
there wasn't enough evidence to prove a
conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand
that the case be reopened.  A notable element of
the book included their discussions with Tom
Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation
that he had undertaken while he was under Courtney
Love's employment.  On their insistence, Grant
played some the tapes for the journalists to prove
his claims.  Over the next couple of years,
Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to
write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The
Murder of Kurt Cobain, where they claim to
conclusively prove that Cobain was murdered.  

However, while the murder theories remain popular
among a core group of hardcore Nirvana fans, the
official verdict of death by self-inflicted
gunshot wound is still generally accepted by the
public.  Most cite Cobain's persistent drug
addiction, clinical depression, and handwritten
suicide note as conclusive proof.  Many also point
out that Grohl and Novoselic have remained silent
in the matter, and that they would certainly have
spoken out had they believed that Kurt was
murdered.

==After Cobain's death==
Writer Charles R. Cross published a biography of
Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven in 2001.  In it,
Cross attempted to contact as many of Cobain's
friends and family as possible, and received a
significant amount of input from widow Courtney
Love.  The book is probably the most detailed
account of Cobain's life on record, and is
arguably the "definitive" Cobain biography.

However, many criticized Cross for including
anything and everything related to Cobain,
including details that, unbeknownst to him, were
factually inaccurate.  For example, Cross cited
"On the Mountain" conclusively as the first
working title for "You Know You're Right".  In
reality, "On the Mountain" was the result of an
effort by fans in 1995 to decipher Dave Grohl's
introduction to the song on a 1993 live recording.
 (When a clearer version of the recording surfaced
some months later, it became clear that Grohl
introduced the song as "All Apologies", since "You
Know You're Right" wasn't on the written setlist
that night.)  Cross was also heavily criticized
for including an "artist's rendering" of Kurt's
final days.  Cross claimed in interviews that he
felt he had learned enough about Cobain to
reasonably guess Cobain's state of mind in the
last week of his life.  Many felt that the
inclusion of fiction in what was supposed to be a
non-fiction book was an insult to Cobain's memory.

Cobain wrote in a Diary|journal often, leaving 22
notebooks filled with his writing when he died. In
November 2002, a sampling of these writings was
published as Journals. The book is 280 pages with
a simple black cover; the pages are arranged
somewhat chronologically (although Cobain
generally did not date them). The journal pages
are reproduced in color, and there is a section
added at the back that has explanations and
transcripts of some of the less legible pages. The
writings begin in the late 1980s, around the time
the band started, and end in 1994.  A paperback
version of the book, released in 2003, included a
handful of writings that were not offered in the
initial release.

In the journals, Cobain talked about the ups and
downs of life on the road, made lists of what
music he was enjoying, and often scribbed down
lyric ideas for future reference.  Upon its
release, fans were conflicted about the
collection.  They were elated to be able to learn
more about the man and read his inner thoughts in
his own words, but were disturbed by what seemed
to some to be an invasion of his privacy.


In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington
that reads "Welcome to Aberdeen- Come As You Are"
as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and
created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a
non-profit organization created in May 2004 to
honor Cobain. The Committee also plans to create a
Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in
Aberdeen.

The mythic nature of Cobain's life even captured
the eyes of Hollywood.  Gus Van Sant based his
2005 movie Last Days (movie)|Last Days on what
might have happened in the final hours of Cobain's
life.

Years after his passing, Cobain continues to
intrigue and inspire fans.  A full eight years
after his death, Nirvana's final studio recording,
"You Know You're Right", topped playlists
worldwide, bringing a new generation of Nirvana
fans.  Nevermind remains a watershed in
alternative music, and consistently tops "best
album" lists throughout the world.  Many feel that
Cobain's contributions to music history have
permanently changed the landscape of popular
music, marking him as one of the most influential
songwriters in music history -- even if that was
never his intention.

==See also==
*List of famous opiate addicts
*List of drug-related deaths
*List of people believed to have been affected by
bipolar disorder

==References==
*note|gayAllman, Kevin.
"http://www.nirvana-music.com/kurt-cobain-advocate
-interview.html The Dark Side of Kurt Cobain". The
Advocate. February 1992.
*Azerrad, Michael. Come As You Are: The Story of
Nirvana. Doubleday, 1993.  ISBN 0385471998
*note|graffitiCross, Charles. Heavier Than Heaven:
A Biography of Kurt Cobain.  Hyperion, 2001. ISBN
0786884029
*Summers, Kim.
"http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=Blhu
d6j6h71q0 Kurt Cobain". All Music Guide. Accessed
on May 9, 2005.
*Garofalo, Reebee. Rockin' Out: Popular Music in
the USA. Allyn & Bacon, 1997. ISBN 0205137032
**note|anthemgenerationp. 447
**note|spiritualcenterp. 448
**note|famep. 448
*note|grantGrant, Tom.
"http://www.cobaincase.com/index2.html The Kurt
Cobain Murder Investigation". Cobaincase.com.
Accessed on June 17, 2005.
*note|jfk"http://www.justiceforkurt.com/investigat
ion/faqs.shtml Frequently Asked Questions".
Justice For Kurt Cobain. Accessed on June 17,
2005.

==External links==

* imdb name|id=0001052|name=Kurt Cobain
* http://www.cobain.com Kurt Cobain Memorial - A
web site dedicated to the life of Kurt Cobain.
* http://www.thrasherswheat.org/jammin/nirvana.htm
Sleeps With Angels - Neil Young's Tribute to Kurt
Cobain.
* http://www.cobaincase.com/ Kurt Cobain Murder
Investigation - A site by Private Investigator Tom
Grant.
* http://www.justiceforkurt.com/ Justice for Kurt
Cobain - Another site.
* http://www.nirvanafanclub.com/ The Internet
Nirvana Fan Club -  Unofficial fansite.

Nirvana (band)