The Kurt Cobain song described as an “origin story”
Nirvana’s late frontman Kurt Cobain stands proud in the history books as the figurehead of grunge music. His innovative work over the late 1980s and ‘90s brought grunge music to the foreground of rock consciousness thanks to his ever-immersive lyrics and provocative demeanour. Cobain’s tragic suicide in 1994 elevated him to a new level of fame with haunting irony, given that fame was one of the final nails in the troubled singer’s coffin.
Cobain gained much of his songwriting ability from an insatiable thirst for literature, especially material that gave the therapeutic release of spiritual escapism. Like The Beatles, The Doors and Bob Dylan before him, Cobain was particularly enamoured with Beat Generation literature, which included the progressive, creative ideas of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.
When writing many of his lyrics for Nirvana in the late 1980s and ‘90s, Cobain would regularly employ Burroughs’ famed cut-up technique to create avant-garde word structures and thematic ideas.
Another Beat Generation author Cobain was enamoured with was Jack Kerouac, the American adventurer best known for his 1957 novel Life On The Road. When writing his early material in the run-up to 1989’s Bleach, Cobain paid homage to Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums in the experimental 93-second rarity ‘Beans’.
During this early period of Cobain’s career, he recorded a host of rough demos and covers, many of which surfaced in the soundtrack album for the 2015 film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, titled Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings.
On the deluxe edition of the rarities album lies a particularly interesting track named ‘Aberdeen’. It would feel a stretch to call this one a song since it contains no music, just a spoken word arrangement reminiscent of a Ginsberg poetry recital.
In ‘Aberdeen’, Cobain tells the story of his introduction to marijuana as a young teenager and his subsequent failed attempt to lose his virginity to a special-needs girl from his school. With the sobering shame experienced thereafter, Cobain recounts lying down across railroad tracks in a failed suicide attempt.
Montage of Heck, directed by Brett Morgen, explores Cobain’s early life and personal, often untouched, facets. Following the movie’s release, Buzz Osbourne, a member of Melvins and one of Cobain’s close friends, stated that the inclusion of ‘Aberdeen’ was an example of how the documentary was “total bullshit”.
“I was surprised because the genius of that story is that it’s a piece of art – it’s a very clearly performed and constructed narrative,” Morgen told NME in response to Osbourne’s comments. “Did Kurt have sex with that particular woman? I doubt it – it’s a story, like ‘Floyd The Barber’ is a story.”
“But it reflects Kurt’s experiences of life,” Morgen continued. “I’ve never publicly said this, but I’m fairly confident that it’s an origin story Kurt was metaphorically disguising because one of his earliest sexual experiences was clearly incredibly humiliating and shameful to him, and that’s what it reflects. I’m also pretty confident that Buzz does not know what the real origin story is. When you start to get into Kurt’s art and try to deconstruct it for fact, you miss the point of it.”
Listen to Kurt Cobain’s solo recording ‘Aberdeen’ below.
