Kurt Cobain is my most persistent celebrity crush. I can’t remember a time I didn’t love him, or at least aspire to love him. And rather than diminishing with age, it’s actually gotten worse and more complicated.
When I listen to his early recordings, I imagine what he must have felt — knowing what we know — how he must have felt to have written a song, to have gotten it to the point of actually liking it and wanting to keep it alive. I think about the energy it takes to get to that point of hitting record, playing the song, wanting to preserve it. I think about how it felt to listen to it later and still like it enough.
This line of thought is something like the emotion called sonder. Or maybe it’s just regular empathy.
I listen to the live recordings and hear his small comments between songs. I think about how it felt to play a song like “Lithium” — which he must have played a hundred times alone in his room so it could continue to exist — how it must have felt to play a song like “Lithium” and hear a thousand people singing, too.
I think about how it must have felt for him to relieve some of the suffering.
Or maybe I’m projecting. Maybe obsessively reading the book of journals published after his suicide and gifted to me for my 15th birthday didn’t give me the great insight I want to believe it…
