The cryptic reason behind Kurt Cobain’s first arrest
Kurt Cobain was never one to shy away from controversy. When it came to speaking his mind or doing outrageous political and societal acts, there was no escaping the fact that he was a rebel. Most of the time, this controversy landed him on the right side of history, as many of his actions and opinions were to be credited.
He wasn’t afraid to stop his shows if he saw people in the crowd being treated poorly. For instance, at a show in 1993, he threw his guitar to the floor when he saw a man groping the woman in front of him. He alerted security and spoke into the microphone, “Copping a feel, eh, buddy?” before removing the man from the show.
Cobain was a proud feminist and didn’t mind writing shocking lyrics that highlighted the plight of women in a bid to get his message across. His song ‘Rape Me’ was met with looks of disgust and eye rolls by some who just saw the title, but it displayed a very poignant message and one that Cobain had to stun members of the public into paying attention to.
“It’s like she’s saying, ‘Rape me, go ahead, rape me, beat me. You’ll never kill me. I’ll survive this, and I’m gonna fucking rape you one of these days, and you won’t even know it’,” he said when discussing the meaning of the song, “It’s about a young girl who was abducted, the guy drove her around in his van. Tortured her. Raped her. The only chance she had of getting away was to come on to him and persuade him to untie her. That’s what she did, and she got away. Can you imagine how much strength that took?”
Cobain was someone who put the cause before the consequences. He was well aware that that song might land him in hot water with some people, would be met with controversy and wouldn’t be played on the radio, but that didn’t matter. He had a strong set of principles and stood by them, regardless of what trouble standing by them might get him into. When you know that this is his mindset, irrespective of his good intentions, it won’t surprise you to hear that he was arrested a few times.
The first time he was arrested was for graffitiing the side of a bank. While the corruption involved in the financial world might help you understand his motive, the message that he was trying to convey seems to have been lost in time. To this day, it’s pretty hard to understand what Cobain was attempting to write on the side of the bank, and it’s unlikely we will ever know.
In 1985, he scribbled the cryptic code, “Ain’T goT no how whatchamacallit.” What he was trying to say is difficult to understand, but the loose translation is more than likely along the lines of “Banks are bad.” He was also arrested a year later for trying to walk across a roof while intoxicated. Cobain’s rebellious nature often resulted in protests and acts opting for political change, but sometimes, especially in these two instances in 1985 and 1986, they simply gave rise to foolishness.
