Musical Heritage A look at the musical heritage of Kurt Cobain and Kurt Charles Kurt Charles
Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
My musical heritage like many others was developed and evolved over many years of my life. Even though I have a style of my own at this time it is guaranteed to change and adapt as things in my life change and the music industry as a whole move in a new direction. As part of this assignment we are also given the task of looking at a famous artist’s life to examine what made up their music heritage. The person that I chose was Kurt Cobain. He was the beginning of grunge rock and many people called him an anti-star for the way he appeared to never care about a thing. The funny thing about this choice was the only reason that I chose him was the fact that we shared the same first name. I know a few of the songs but I really had no idea the story behind the man. In my research, I took an in-depth look into his life and was astonished what I found. In many ways I can see how our influences were similar and to the other extreme I can see how they were very different. Kurt Donald Cobain was born February 20, 1967. “Yelling loudly at first, and then crying if the first technique doesn’t work.” (Cross, 2001)This is the way that Kurt’s family described him as a baby, but to his defense, this seems to be the technique of most babies. Kurt was said to be a happy smiling baby and he was thought to be developing this way because of the love and attention that he was given by his family. I was much the same way growing up. I wasn’t the first child, but I was the first boy and there was a great deal of love and attention given by my family. His mother said that his favorite toys as a baby were blocks, trucks, harmonica, and drums. Kurt’s family was a musical family and one of his uncles was in a band called the Beachcombers, so it came as no surprise that Kurt seemed to enjoy the arts even at this young age. In my family, I really don’t remember much of a musical influence, but my father tells me
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
he was part of a band for a short time. That being said, while growing up I don’t even remember music being played on the radio except in the car. With his family and extended family giving him so much attention his mother recalled that it was hard to put him in the crib as he would start crying when separated from the family. At a young age Kurt’s family was impressed with how intelligent he was and at the age of 1 ½ Kurt’s aunt couldn’t figure out how to lower his crib so he did it himself. Kurt grew up in Aberdeen, Washington near his large family. His family was so large that when his mother printed off the birth announcements she made it through 50 before she was done with the immediate family. The setting of Kurt’s childhood was a small lumber town and the river by where he lived was so stacked with lumber at times you would have thought you could have walked across it from one side to the other. But this industry was reflected on the community showing the signs of clear cutting. The mindset in the early days of the town was to cut it all. As unemployment rose in the community the area suffered and was referred to as white trash posing as middle class. Aberdeen was home to 37 different sawmills, lumber yards, and pulp factories. This county was one of the few that had a steadily declining population as people decided to try their luck elsewhere to find work. Unfortunately, the growing unemployment also led to growing disparity, alcoholism, theft, violence, and suicide. Despite all of this there was a close knit community where people helped each other and the kids were allowed to ride their bikes all across the town. As Kurt grew up, all of Aberdeen would become his backyard. I grew up in Kentwood, Michigan where I remained for my entire youth. I don’t think that there was a place in the town that I hadn’t been on my bike or rollerblades. Kentwood was a great place to grow up as everything was close. There were malls, grocery stores, auto parts, 3
Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
theaters, and schools within miles of where we lived and a large enough population to give me endless hours of play time with the local kids. Where we lived the economy was good and the crime was low. I only remember one incident when growing up where the windshield of my parent’s car was smashed. The town was built on office furniture and in the early 1980’s Steelcase was in its prime and employed a large part of the community. Don and Wendy were Kurt’s parents. Don was 21 and Wendy 19 when Kurt was born. They had met in high school where Wendy became pregnant and Don invented an excuse to borrow his father’s sedan so they could go to Idaho and marry without parental consent. Don worked long hours while Wendy stayed home with the baby. Finances were a sore point in the household as Don only made $6,000 a year, so money was tight. However, when it came to Kurt nothing was too good; they would get professional photos and the nicest clothes they could afford. The Cobain family loved to spend time together and they recall taking Kurt sledding. He would always go first and then wave when he reached the bottom, which signified the rest of the family could go. They would repeat this cycle for hours until dark or Kurt fell to the ground from exhaustion. Again the tension between Don and Wendy could be seen when the Cobain’s went for a family portrait. Kurt stood with his father while his sister sat on Wendy’s lap. If you cut this picture right down the middle you could easily make two separate families. As the money situation in the Cobain household grew tighter the tension grew greater. Don started to expect Kurt to act as a little adult and would thump him on the temple or chest when he didn’t like how he was acting. This only hurt a little but it carried great psychological damage for the young boy and he began to retreat to his closet. The spaces that would make most people feel claustrophobic gave Kurt a sanctuary. Kurt still sought out his father’s approval and really longed to have a
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
strong male figure in his life. To do this Kurt started to play sports but he found his father to be overbearing. Don himself became involved in sports and played on so many leagues that his wife became fed up with all his time away and soon filed for a divorce. My parents Dale and Carol Charles married in their mid 20’s. My father had already been married young and had a son. His marriage became unstable when he went to Vietnam and his wife began to cheat on him. Even though he had a child they felt it was best they part ways. He would continue to see his son after my mother had come into the picture. They had him for the entire summer every year and when he was old enough to decide where he would like to stay he chose his mother stating that his father had too many rules. By this time my parents were in there late 20’s and decided to have children together. Soon after, my sister was born. Then one year later in April of 1983 I was born. My parents were active outdoor people and as a youth I spent sun up to sun down outside. We loved to camp, ski, sled, and spend time at the lake together. My sister and I were close growing up and spent countless hours playing in the yard together. My parents spent hours helping us develop skills like riding bike. I remember being very stubborn and wanting desperately to ride my bike, so my dad ran up and down the street with me until he just physically couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t have it yet and stayed out in the yard falling over countless times until finally I managed to stay up on my own. One year, my dad built a miniature house for my sister in the back yard. We loved this house and I remember sleeping out in the house with my sister and dad many times. Like I said, this was a miniature house and my dad’s feet would stick out the door but he didn’t mind. He just loved spending time with us. I rarely remember my parents having arguments and if they did they didn’t do it in front of us. To this day they remain married and I feel that this is a large part of why I turned out the way I did.
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
As life moved on Kurt became a teenager and found himself in a depressing lifestyle that would take him from home to home. Over his teenage life he would live with just about every relative he had and fortunately for him there was a lot to choose from. As the family dried up he found himself having to live on the street. By the end of his teenage life he found a girlfriend that helped take care of him and almost acted like a mother figure. Once she came into the picture Kurt cleaned up his act a bit and bought a house with a friend. The house they would refer to as the pink shack was just that, a shack with pink walls and barely suited for living, but Kurt didn’t seem to mind the inferior conditions at all. Kurt made it on his own for a while but he always seemed to end up turning to someone to take him in. This time it would be the Reed’s. The Reed’s had a son that was Kurt’s age and they seemed to give something to each other that Kurt really needed in his life. So the Reed’s spoke with Don and Wendy, Kurt’s mom and dad, and they all decided this would be worth a try. For a while it was a great fit for Kurt as the Reed’s lived in the country where they could jam on their guitars as loud as they wanted without interruptions. Mr. Reed was into music as well and had been in the band the Beach Combers with Kurt’s uncle. The influence from the Reed’s gave Kurt the idea that at some point he could become the artist that he had always wanted to be. The family life at the Reed’s was also what Kurt needed as love and belonging were all tangible things for every member of the family. This gave Kurt the feeling of a real family that he needed. While at the Reed’s Kurt failed out of school and Mr. Reed was able to get Kurt a job where he worked, until one afternoon Kurt cut his finger and flew into a fit of rage. He had to get stitches from this incident and told his friend Jessie that if he couldn’t play guitar he would kill himself. This was the last straw for the Reed’s and they were forced to ask Kurt to find a new place to live. The downward spiral in his life continued. 6
Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
My living situation as a teen was very stable I minded my parents and always had a place to stay and food to eat. When I finished high school, my girlfriend and my parents encouraged me to go to college even though my boss at the time assured me that there was no need. Fortunately for me I listened to my family and started to pursue an Associate’s degree. By this time I was making good money at my job and decided to move out of my parent’s house at the age of 19. This was a very exciting thing and my parents told me I could always come back. I promptly told them that would never happen. This wasn’t because living with them was bad. It was pride talking and the determination that I would always be able to take care of myself. So, my soon to be wife and I searched for a suitable home and in 2003 we bought one and enjoyed living there for 8 years. The only thing Kurt found soothing was art. He was so good at art that he was said to be able to draw anything he saw. One time he drew a rendering of Donald Duck and showed it to his Grandfather who thought it was so good that it must be a tracing. He told Kurt there was no way that he did it and put a pencil and paper in front of him and demanded he reproduce it. When he was able to do this request, and even better than before, his Grandfather was amazed. His friends recall that in school Kurt was not good in any of the subjects and always seemed to be depressed, but when he was in an art class he would come alive. He made realistic drawings, mainly of a women’s anatomy or grotesque images. At times these images were so offensive that the school wanted to expel him. Kurt’s other passion was the guitar. He spent all of his free time playing his guitar and wrote countless original songs. Unfortunately this wasn’t his only pastime. He often found himself using drugs and he was quoted in an interview later in life saying that he
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
would try any drug available and use it as much as possible until it was no longer interesting. Once it became boring he would move to the next drug and repeat the whole cycle again. After reading this chapter I was shocked to hear how Kurt’s teenage years had played out. I don’t have any story that would even compare to his life. For me art has never been my thing. I spent a few years in band and I was able to play the trumpet, tuba, and baritone. I enjoyed band but when I made it to high school I found interest in other areas and stopped participating in band. As for drugs I didn’t find a void that needed to be filled with drugs. My father got me interested in hunting and fishing at a young age and we spent every free moment doing this activity together. Hunting was something that I took very seriously I felt that the responsibility of handling a gun in the company of others took a mature individual and I rose to the occasion. When I wasn’t hunting, my dad had found us a job remodeling houses for a friend of his. My father was a wonderful handyman. He learned this from his years of working on his father’s farm and 30 years at Stow & Davis as a building mechanic. Doing this work with my father really gave me the desire to get into the trades when I grew up and gave me a life path that I would stick with to this day, over ten years later. When Kurt made it to his adult life things were as bad as they could be. He was hooked on drugs and almost lost his life several times due to overdosing before his mid 20’s. He seemed to not care about his well being at all. His friends remember one time that he was going to inject himself with heroin and didn’t add enough water, which made the syringe as black as night. When he injected it into his vain he instantly suffered the affects of an overdose and just lay on the floor motionless in a pool of his own vomit. His friends stunned didn’t know what to do.
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
Thankfully, they finally took him to the hospital where they were able to revive him. This wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t going to be the last. To me this isn’t rational behavior of a person that was finally making his lifelong dream of super stardom come true. We can see by this point that everything that Kurt did over his life didn’t make sense. He really was his own worst enemy and looking back now, I am sure we can see that the way he was raised in his teenage years probably had a profound effect on this final outcome. His distance continued with his parents and he was unable to talk with his father about all the hurt that he had felt from the divorce and the remarriage. His relationship with his mother only grew as his fame did. On January the 12th 1990 Kurt’s life would change once again when he locked eyes with Courtney Love. The night that Kurt met Courtney turned into a full on wresting match on the floor over there witty back and forth comments. After she left Kurt he couldn’t stop thinking of her, but she wasn’t in to him because of his small size. She felt that he looked more like a little boy. After sometime had passed, Nirvana put out a new single. Courtney bought it and found it to be very sexually appealing and soon after she found out that Kurt was single. From this point, Courtney would start to send gifts to Kurt to lure him to her and the next time they met in person the wrestling match turned more into a groping session. Even though Nirvana had signed a major record deal by this time, Kurt was withdrawing more and more from the world and doing more drugs. Because of his addiction, he ended up behind on his rent and was evicted from his home. He came home to his belonging on the curb in cardboard boxes. Soon Kurt would marry Courtney and they would have a baby together. Kurt was very torn to hear that Courtney was pregnant as both of them had been hooked on heroin and he felt that this was a payback for all of his indiscretions in his youth. As the pregnancy moved on they 9
Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
found that the baby was developing normally and when the baby was born Kurt showered her with all the love a father could give. Even though he had a family and a start of a great career he couldn’t shake the drug addiction and continued to regularly overdose on drugs. In March of 1994, Kurt sat down and wrote his suicide note stating” like Hamlet I need to choose life or death and I chose death.” (Cross, 2001)Then he overdosed on pills and was later found in a coma. He was rushed to the hospital and miraculously survived the incident. His addiction was not helped by his wife. Courtney had just signed a record deal that was much bigger than anything Nirvana had done and she used this against him every chance she got. Finally, Kurt decided that his wife and children would be better off without him. He sat down and once again wrote a suicide note and then mapped out how he would exit this life. He planned his end to the smallest detail as he didn’t want to be seen or make a mess that would haunt his family after he was gone. His note ended with a plea for Courtney to continue going on for their daughter. My musical heritage will never develop this way. I have a desire to live and try to make a difference in that way. My musical heritage has a much more cheery note and the music that I have embraced is lighter in sprit and full of life. I don’t have plans of become the next big rock star, but being rich and famous doesn’t seem quite as bad as what was portrayed in the life of Kurt Cobain. When I married in 2004 (ten years after Kurt) I found the union to be very meaningful. My wife and I are very driven individuals and constantly push each other to do better. I know that if not for her there is no way that I would be the man I am today. When our children were born I knew what kind of father that I wanted to be for them. The kind of dad that was at every event and devoted as much of my time as possible to them. I think at this point it is safe to say I have done very well at this. And with the addition of children came yet another
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Kurt Charles Mus 110 12/2/2012 Grand Rapids Community College
chapter to the music heritage - choosing songs that are educational, and no doubt annoying after hearing them over and over, but appropriate for young ear. I am sure these songs have in some way influenced what I am listening to today. In conclusion, my life has not been the rock start drug abusing life that Kurt Cobain chose to lead. But we both had a chosen path and that path brought me to what I enjoy listening to today and brought Kurt to the music that he will forever be idolized for. It would have been interesting to be able to reverse the clock and keep Kurt’s parents together, have him finish high school and never abuse drugs. If this were to happen I wonder if we would hear vastly different music from Kurt or even know him for his music at all. It is surreal how all the small events of one’s life can in the end have such a profound impact on the outcome. As for me I will stay on my path because I love the way that the music of my life is developing.
Works Cited Cross, C. R. (2001). Heavier Than Heaven. Blackstone audio.
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