Hendrix, Joplin, Robert Johnson, the guy from Badfinger, Jim Morrison, and 15 years ago, yesterday, Kurt Cobain. All dead by 27, and some none too prettily either. This guy just wrote a book about those above and other musicians who died at the age of 27. Not by the age of 27, but in that year.
Kurt Cobain, I remember well. One of the first deaths during my lifetime to actually affect me, Cobain's (apparent - not getting into it here) suicide, like most, bothered me not so much for the loss of the person but for the question: why?
Kurt is a good example of this. If at the time anyone was making bets on who in the world of entertainment, perhaps the world itself, would be most likely to off themselves, he would have been an odds on favorites. Still, even though it was almost as if his whole life and career had lead up to this, his violent death came as a shock; suddenly and, seemingly, "From Out of Nowhere" (great Faith No More song from the era).
Seen below, Cobain had just recently become the father of a baby girl. In interviews and on TV, it seemed as if the talk of Kurt finally getting control if not rid of his chronic heroin addiction might be true. From however humble (read: poor and unstable) a background he came from, and despite the effects of hard living, Cobain appeared to by "settling down."
Maybe that was the problem. According to some popular wisdom of the time, partially, it was. By that point, the inherent paradox of the corporate-sponsored usurpation/co-option/whatever of the "revolution" that was the Alt/Grunge/etc. scene, that was Nirvana, Kurt's band, was becoming unsustainable and for Cobain himself, unfortunately, unbearable.
(If unfamiliar with 90's alt-music culture: the "Diet Grrrl" on Francis Bean is a satirical--or maybe just clever--reference to the Riot Grrrl-cultura of which Courtney Love, Cobain's wife and FB's mother, was a icon for.)
(Yep, that's Francis Bean these days, age 16)
I also remember when I turned 28, and being pleasantly surprised I'd made it. I had heard of the magic and tragic #27, until that point having always worked in, around and/or playing music since adolescence.
To be sure, I was no heroin addict, chronic or other wise. (Lost a few friends who were, though.) No, but I definitely spent some years that I can't recall much of; think of it as a living-in-NY-as-a-young-punk tax. But most on the list of 27's didn't blow their brains out with a shotgun because they couldn't get off smack and couldn't stand being the most venerated musician of their time either.
Indeed, a constant of the 27's is the trouble of fame--what to most of us often comes off as out-of-touch or pretentious at best. But here, anyway, it seems relevant to what's going on: all things being equal, even without the pressures of fame, these are the folks (not all of them, but the ones who went messily and/or self-destructively) that would've been the most susceptible to the things one can do to oneself.
Whether or not the lives they led were made any worse is impossible to know. Perhaps their wild and crazy lives helped some to come out of the shells they would've otherwise wasted away in, long before the age of 27. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.
But, at least with Cobain, drugs or no drugs, he probably wasn't going to wind up being a people-person. That doesn't mean he wouldn't have been a good person, a good father.
Really, though: fuck all of us. It's not about what we missed out on, not about our loss. Rather, it's that Francis Bean never got to find out just what kind of person her father was.
Lord knows, with a mother like Courtney Love, a good dad would be of use.
To be sure, I was no heroin addict, chronic or other wise. (Lost a few friends who were, though.) No, but I definitely spent some years that I can't recall much of; think of it as a living-in-NY-as-a-young-punk tax. But most on the list of 27's didn't blow their brains out with a shotgun because they couldn't get off smack and couldn't stand being the most venerated musician of their time either.
Indeed, a constant of the 27's is the trouble of fame--what to most of us often comes off as out-of-touch or pretentious at best. But here, anyway, it seems relevant to what's going on: all things being equal, even without the pressures of fame, these are the folks (not all of them, but the ones who went messily and/or self-destructively) that would've been the most susceptible to the things one can do to oneself.
Whether or not the lives they led were made any worse is impossible to know. Perhaps their wild and crazy lives helped some to come out of the shells they would've otherwise wasted away in, long before the age of 27. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.
But, at least with Cobain, drugs or no drugs, he probably wasn't going to wind up being a people-person. That doesn't mean he wouldn't have been a good person, a good father.
Really, though: fuck all of us. It's not about what we missed out on, not about our loss. Rather, it's that Francis Bean never got to find out just what kind of person her father was.
Lord knows, with a mother like Courtney Love, a good dad would be of use.
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