Married and Buried: Punk As A Four-Letter Word, Part Two
Posted in Books, Retrovirus, Music, We Miss The Nineties |I never understood why the remaining members of Nirvana hated Love so much. I knew it couldn’t be something as ridiculous those spurious claims that she introduced Cobain to heroin or got pregnant on purpose to ensnare him (claims which True and his sources vehemently decry).
True provides continual, detailed descriptions of Love’s schemes to control Kurt’s career and isolate him from his bandmates and friends while simultaneously courting his management and record label. Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl’s animosity towards her sounds less like sour grapes and more like corroborating evidence. This becomes more convincing because True seems like such a forthright, knowledgeable person. Before I read his characterization of Come As You Are as “a futile attempt to stop. . . scurrilous reportage on [Nirvana]” (7) and Azerrad as “chosen by Kurt’s management” to be “a safe pair of hands,” (8) I’d already made those leaps in my mind.
By the time I got to the end of the book, I felt profoundly miserable. I know all too well that charisma, intelligence, and physical beauty are a powerful combination, sometimes powerful enough to mask a dark and twisted heart, and not the good, punk rock kind. If I could be fooled in one brief encounter with Courtney Love, how on earth could someone in love with her have resisted? No, she didn’t kill him or even drive him to commit suicide, but she sure seemed to have made his life miserable towards the end.
Kurt Cobain in a still from
Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” video
It seems that Love’s manipulations were yet another burden on Cobain’s frail shoulders, already faltering under the weight of intense fame, drug addiction, and the inner turmoil that playing the corporate game created. Will Nirvana’s legacy be forever tainted by the shadow of her self-aggrandizement? Sure she made “You Know You’re Right” available, but she also made Cobain’s personal diaries available. And for what? More plastic surgery? Legal fees? Rehab? She has frequently condemned Novoselic and Grohl for taking food out of Frances’ mouth, but anyone who knows the fortune Cobain amassed in the years before his death can see that charge is ridiculous.
I know that the Sex Pistols had something valid to say and were not puppets operated by Malcolm McLaren, but his role in their story casts a pall over their accomplishments, and perhaps this is the same thing that bothers Aaron Brophy about grunge. It saddens me to see punk idealism corrupted by the establishment it fought against in the first place, just as it saddens me to see the media’s version of grunge eclipse what it stood for.
It may be misguided, but I can’t help but see this tale as Another Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, starring Kurt Cobain and Nirvana as the last hope for subverting the mainstream from within, and Courtney Love as the femme fatale, representing the establishment who crushed that hope under her designer heels.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia, “Legs McNeil”
2. Everett True, Nirvana (Da Capo Press, 2007), 267
3. Ibid., 530
4. Ibid., 307-8
5. Ibid., 540-1
6. Ibid., 543
7. Ibid., 484
8. Ibid., 569
