Cobain contemplates aging, selling out, dying in ‘Journals’
In between musings on drugs and suicide, Kurt Cobain recorded his fear that he and his groundbreaking grunge band, Nirvana, would become aging rock stars reduced to playing reunion concerts at amusement parks.
“Hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend,” Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994, wrote in a never-released letter to fans.
That 1992 letter is included in Journals, a collection of disjointed diary entries, letters and drawings taken from Cobain’s notebooks, to be published by Riverhead Books on Nov. 4.
Journals excerpts appear in the new issue of Newsweek. Riverhead reportedly paid Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, $4 million for publishing rights.
“It’s a cautionary tale of addiction,” Newsweek senior editor Jeff Giles says. “We see this arc of him going from a young guy desperate to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band to a famous singer desperate to get out of the limelight.”
Inside Cobain’s mind:
* On himself: “I like punk rock. I like girls with weird eyes. I like drugs (but my body and mind won’t allow me to take them). I like passion. I like playing my cards wrong. … I like to feel guilty for being a white, American male.”
* On fame: “I didn’t want all this attention, but I’m not freaked out. It’s an entertaining thought to watch a rock figure … mentally self-destruct. But I’m sorry, friends. I’ll have to decline. Maybe Crispin Glover should join the band.”
* On drugs: “It might be time for the Betty Ford clinic or the Richard Nixon library to save me from abusing my anemic, rodent-like body any longer. … I decided to use heroin on a daily basis because of an ongoing stomach ailment that I had been suffering from for the past five years. (After rehab) I instantly regained that familiar burning nausea and decided to either kill myself or stop the pain. I bought a gun but chose drugs instead.”
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