nirvana_slash_archive | Entries tagged with topic:being a black sheep

"I was politicized in high school. I had an open mind and didn’t really care for Reagan. I cut my teeth on radical punk rock – the Dead Kennedys, Maximumrockandroll, and MDC. Those were the few anti-Reagan voices at the time, especially if you were in Aberdeen [Wash.] and were 18 years old. I didn’t feel like reading dry political analyses. I needed something that spoke to me, that I could understand.

"The state of mind I was in was just anti-establishment and feeling awkward. I realized that “It’s not me, it’s those people [who have a problem].” They totally bought into mainstream culture, and I disassociated myself from it. Republicans – even Democrats – it was like “What do I care?” But I did vote when I was 18. I voted for Walter Mondale, and I’ve voted in every presidential election since.

"[...] Nirvana was always political. We talked about things and how we felt. There was Operation Desert Storm in early ’91, and it broke my heart that people bought into that. I was living in Tacoma, Wash., a real meat-and-potatoes town, and it was scary and surreal, the hypocrisy of the government and people buying it. Six months later, the mainstream culture that was duped by Desert Storm was all over us. We were repulsed. We were like “Who are these people?” It took us a long time to deal with that."

-Krist, 8 Feb 1996, Rolling Stone magazine

Archivist's note: Emphasis in bold is mine.

Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Kurt Cobain

Load up on guns
Bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
She's over-bored and self-assured
Oh no, I know, a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out
It's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid
And contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

Yeah!

Hey
Yay

I'm worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out
It's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid
And contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

Yeah!

Hey
Yay

And I forget just why I taste
Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard, it's hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind

Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello
How low?
Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out
It's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid
And contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial
A denial

Archivist's note: Has anyone else noticed what Kurt hid in here with his clever play on words? I think it's hilarious that this song got so popular, and I bet Kurt did, too.

"And I forget just why I taste. Oh, yeah, I guess it makes me smile. I found it hard, it's hard to find. Oh, well. Whatever. Nevermind."

I recall Kurt mentioning that one proposed name for what became Nevermind was "Blowjob", and that gives a hint. What did Kurt find that was hard? Any guesses? Tasting it made him smile. :3 And why was it hard for him to find? Maybe because gay and bi men aren't as common as straight men?

Hopefully I don't need to elaborate further on that verse.

I think the poetic "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido," is also related to this theme. What do these four things have in common? They're all things that have been treated as "unwanted", "unusual", or "outcast" by human society. Kurt feels rejected for his natural desires. The hopeless-sounding end of the song, "A denial," really says it all.

And this next idea is just a good guess, but I think the bored sounding "Hey" and "Yay" following the impassioned chorus might be Kurt's sarcastic imitation of braindead mainstream "music consumers" failing to respond in a human way to real art. Incredibly ironic that this song became the top favourite of those very braindead people, but I guess alienation is highly relatable in current American society regardless of who you are.

Jon Savage: Did you have problems in high school?

Kurt Cobain: Yeah. You know I felt so different and so crazy that people just left me alone. I always felt that they would vote me "Most likely to kill everyone at a high school dance." You know?

(22 July 1993)

Archivist's note: Thank god he picked up a guitar instead of a gun!!

Interviewer: So, how did you guys meet? Come together?

Krist: Well, Kurt and I originally lived in this small community in Washington, and we just kind of found each other, because, uh...

Kurt: There's not too many people in that small community that like punk rock.

Krist: Yeah, yeah.

Kurt: It isn't too hard.

Krist: Yeah, yeah, it's like, you meet somebody and: "Oh, this is just another one of those fuckin' geeks." [makes chronic geek face] Then we fell in love. Yeah. It's been great. We're married.

Kurt: [sarcastic] Then we fell in love with each other's father's. [shakes head]

Krist: Yeah, it's like, father and son--fathers' and sons' relationships are really heavy. We like, swap fathers and stuff.

Kurt: We were part of the man-love-boy association.

Krist: We met through our fathers. Our fathers were kind of notorious in our town.

Kurt: [grins]

-18 Apr 1990

Archivist's notes: I love how Kurt finishes Krist's sentence here. Two black sheep sharing a vibe and a brain, apparently.

Just want to make note of the heavy sarcasm, black humor, and bullshittery going on here in the comments about their dads, since sarcasm doesn't translate well by text. For full body language cues, watch the complete interview on YouTube.

Territorial Pissings
by Kurt Cobain

Intro sung by Krist:
"Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another
right now"

When I was an alien
Cultures weren't opinions

[Chorus:]
Gotta find a way
to find a way
when I'm there
Gotta find a way
a better way
I had better wait

Never met a wise man
If so it's a woman

[chorus x2]

Just because you're paranoid
Don't mean they're not after you

[chorus x4]

Archivist's note: To read a feminist meaning Kurt gave to these lyrics, click here.

"I'm not proud of the fact that we have tons of MTV junkies and Guns N' Roses lugheads at our shows now. These are the kinds of people who are screaming out 'Do Teen Spirit!' during Polly. How are these pinheads going to appreciate the subtleties of something like 'Territorial Pissings' when they're doing it themselves out in the hallways? It's about a violent female revolution based on Valerie Solanas's book, The Scum Manifesto. How are these typical, macho American males gonna appreciate that?"

-Kurt, Propaganda Magazine, Spring 1992

Archivist's note: Read the lyrics to Territorial Pissings here.

It's nice to see that Kurt took The Scum Manifesto literally, as I believe it was intended to be read. Both Valerie and Kurt experienced some of the worst horrors of male violence in their lives, Kurt as child watching his mother being beaten (and probably sexually assaulted) by her horrible boyfriend(s) and Valerie, of course, through her economically-coerced involvement in prostitution.

""I don't think he [Kurt] had a hell of a lot of friends," [Matt] Lukin recalls. "He was always trying to start bands, but it was hard to find people who wouldn't flake out on him." [Buzz] Osborne introduced him to Novoselic, a shy youth so tall (he's six feet seven) that he bumped his head on the beams in Cobain's house. Cobain formed a band with this kindred spirit two years his senior. [...]

A vandal with a cause, Cobain loved to spray-paint the word "queer" on four-by-four trucks, the redneck vehicle of choice. Other favorite graffiti included "God is gay" and "Abort Nirvana Christ." In 1985, Novoselic, Osborne, and 18-year-old Cobain wrote "Homosexual Sex Rules" on the side of an Aberdeen bank (Osborne swears it said "Quiet Riot"). While Osborne and Novoselic hid in a garbage dumpster, Cobain was caught and arrested. A police report lists the contents of his pockets: a guitar pick, a key, a beer, a mood ring, and a cassette by the militant punk band Millions of Dead Cops."

-16 Apr 1992, Rolling Stone magazine

Archivist's note: Kurt listed Millions of Dead Cops as one of his top 50 favourite albums. Check out the lyrics to "America's So Straight" from the album Kurt had in his pocket.

( Read more... )

"Novoselic and Cobain come from rural Aberdeen, Washington. [...] One of the more popular bars in town is actually called the Pourhouse, which is where two young men about Cobain's age, Joe and James, sit down for a pitcher of beer--each. [...]

"Yeah, I know the Cobain kid," says James, "Faggot."
He's a faggot?" asks Joe, taken aback. Recovering quickly, he declares, "We deal with faggots here. We run 'em out of town."

This is where Cobain and Novoselic grew up. That's why they kissed each other full on the lips as the Saturday Night Live credits rolled. They knew it would piss off the folks back home--and everybody like them.

"I definitely have a problem with the average macho man--the strong-oxen, working-class type," Cobain says wearily, "because they have always been a threat to me. I've had to deal with them most of my life--being taunted and beaten up by them in school, just having to be around them and be expected to be that kind of person when you grow up.

"I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male--or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be," Cobain continues. "Just watch a beer commercial and you'll see what I mean."

Of course, Cobain was miserable in high school. [...] [He] was a sensitive sort, small for his age, and uninterested in sports. "He was terrified of jocks and moron dudes," recalls Cobain's old friend, Mudhoney bassist Matt Lukin.

"As I got older," says Cobain, a fan of Beckett, Burroughs, and Bukowski, "I felt more and more alienated--I couldn't find friends whom I felt compatible with at all. Everyone was going to become a logger, and I knew I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be some kind of artist.""

-16 Apr 1992, Rolling Stone magazine article by Michael Azerrad

Even In His Youth
By Kurt Cobain

Even in his youth [x3]
He was nothing
Kept his body clean [x3]
Going nowhere
Daddy was ashamed [x2]
He was something
Disgrace the family name [x2]
The family name, he was something

He was born for your crew
I've got nothing left to prove
If I die before I wake
Hope I don't come back a slave

Even in his youth [x3]
He was nothing
Kept his body clean [x3]
Going nowhere
Daddy was ashamed [x2]
He was the same, he was nothing
Disgrace the family name [x2]
Family name, going nowhere

Leave this one, for your brew
I've got nothing left to prove
If I die before I wake
Hope I don't come back a slave
Aye-Yeah!

Leave this one, for your brew
I've got nothing left to prove
If I die before I wake
Hope I don't come back again
I'm dying!

Even in his youth [x2]
Yeah, yeah

Archivist's note: For another song that uses the line, "kept his body clean" and features a dysfunctional father/son relationship, click here.

( Read more... )

Kim and Kurt

"Kurt was always protective of his little sister. Some eighteen years after this picture [above, left] was taken, Kim came out to Kurt, and he immediately expressed concern for her safety in Aberdeen--a town not known for tolerance towards homosexuals."

-Chris Molanphy, Kurt Cobain: Voice of a Generation (2003), pg. 18 (the author interviewed Kurt's family for this book)

Interviewer: At what point did it seem to you that he was not--can you describe the men in Aberdeen? In general?

Wendy O'Connor (Kurt's mother): No. [laughs]

Int: Well, Kurt seems very, like, different. At what age was it clear that he was not going to be a logger?

Wendy: Ok, I was thinking the other day about how I guess he thought at one point he might be gay, which is fine, I mean, it runs in our family, but I kind of felt that he was kind of questioning himself. He would ask me questions about girls. And trying to figure out how to get one, I think. That's what I thought.

And I think he was really kind of like, wondering--because he was artistic... and so I started thinking about this the other day, and he was really--he and I were really best friends. I mean, when he died I lost one of my best friends. We had so much fun talking about the world and politics and life and music and just everything. We talked all the time.

And he was very aware, especially when I was with three not-suited men, how that made him feel. He didn't like the way his dad talked to me. He didn't like the way my boyfriend after Don treated me. [...]

He and I were so close, and he was very respectful, he was very courteous, good, really good manners. I made sure of that. Because Don had none. [...] We were just really close, and I think that is what makes the difference in these roughhouse boys, you know, jocks--they're more bonded to their dads, I think, than they are to their mothers. I prefer men that love their mothers. They're just gentler, they understand women a little bit better.

And then just being an artist, he--everywhere in school, except for English and art, he felt like the jocks were--you know, I don't know. He never came home and said he was being bullied. Or that he was being picked on. He never said that. I just assumed that because he wasn't into sports [...] that Kurt probably felt a little left out that way.

And as he got older he got a little more shy. Just maybe less confident. When he was young he didn't care what people thought. And then as he got older he became aware that he wasn't like the regular guys. But it didn't mean that he didn't have guy friends, he had a lot of guy friends, but they were very much similar to him.

-2015, Montage of Heck film outtakes

"I always wanted to think that I was an alien. I used to think when I was young that I was adopted, by my mother, because they found me in a spaceship, like maybe I was from a different planet, I always wanted to be from a different planet really bad. Every night I used to talk to my real parents or my real family in the skies. [laugh] I knew that there were thousands of other alien babies dropped off. And they're all over the place and I've met quite a few of 'em. It's just something that I've always like to toy with in my mind. It was really fun to pretend that, you know. There's some special reason for me to be here. I feel really homesick all the time, so do the other aliens, and I only have the chance to come across like a handful of other aliens throughout the rest of my life. Eventually, one day, we'll find out what we're supposed to do."

-Kurt, About A Son (interviews conducted 1992-3, film released 2006)

[Archivist's note: The 1998 Todd Haynes film, Velvet Goldmine, has a scene based on this quote.]

"[...] when "Teen Spirit" first came out, mainstream audiences were under the assumption that we were just like Guns N' Roses.

Then our opinions started showing up in interviews. And then things like Chris and I kissing on Saturday Night Live. We weren't trying to be subversive or punk rock; we were just doing something insane and stupid at the last minute. I think now that our opinions are out in the open, a lot of kids who bought our record regret knowing anything about us. [Laughs]"

-Kurt, The Advocate 1993

Interviewer: And you used to spray-paint GOD IS GAY on people's trucks?

Kurt: That was a lot of fun. The funniest thing about that was not actually the act but the next morning. I'd get up early in the morning to walk through the neighborhood that I'd terrorized to see the aftermath. That was the worst thing I could have spray-painted on their cars. Nothing else would have been more effective.

Aberdeen was depressing, and there were a lot of negative things about it, but it was really fun to fuck with people all the time.

(The Advocate, 1993)

Audience member: So, 22 years ago, you guys were on SNL--in dresses--and there was a man-on-man kiss. That was revolutionary.

Dave: You know, I'm glad that some people think that. [audience laughter] I'm not kidding! You know one of the things we wanted to represent--we were the antithesis of a lot of that, like, bullshit heavy metal, that homophobic jock rock, because we truly grew up in an underground community where everybody was different and everybody was cool and that's what was so great about it. I mean, you know, I used to get fucking chased around my neighborhood in Virginia, with people calling me a "fag!", because I listened to punk rock. So then I was like, 'I'm in the biggest fuckin' band in the world!' [flips the bird]

[audience cheers]

AM: Thank you, and how do you think things have changed in the 22 years since then? I mean, it's big-time changes.

Dave: Like, musically?

AM: Musically, sociologically, everything.

Dave: Well, that was such a great time in the 90s, in the early 90s, because there seemed to be like this rebirth of idealism, or something, people were--they didn't feel so restricted any more. They didn't feel so compartmentalized, it was more cool. It was ok to be weird, you know. And it was ok to sound like a band in a garage. And it still is! That was a really exciting time.

I mean, I have kids. I have two daughters. And they're great, they're super fun. And I look at them and I can't wait till they fucking dye their hair blue! I can't wait till they start doing all the stupid shit I did when I was young, because I feel like you have to really try to experience everything before you decide--before you really become, you know, the person that you are.

-Bottle Rock Napa Valley 2013

"I've had the reputation of being a homosexual every since I was 14. It was really cool, because I found a couple of gay friends in Aberdeen-which is almost impossible. How I could ever come across a gay person in Aberdeen is amazing! But I had some really good friends that way. I got beat up a lot, of course, because of my association with them.

People just thought I was weird at first, just some fucked-up kid. But once I got the gay tag, it gave me the freedom to be able to be a freak and let people know that they should just stay away from me. Instead of having to explain to someone that they should just stay the fuck away from me-I'm gay, so I can't even be touched. It made for quite a few scary experiences in alleys walking home from school, though."

-Kurt, The Advocate, 9 Feb 1993

quote of the day

"God is gay and so am I."
-Kurt
Journals (hardcover ed.), pg. 123
.

page summary

rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist on developing a politcal consciousness (1996)
rocknroll1968 - Lyrics: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt the School Shooter (1993)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Krist feels married to Kurt (1990)
rocknroll1968 - Lyrics: Territorial Pissings
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Territorial Pissings & Valerie Solanas
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Homosexual Sex Rules (1992)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: The Cobain kid is a faggot (1992)
rocknroll1968 - Lyrics: Even In His Youth (1991)
rocknroll1968 - Excerpt: Kim comes out to Kurt (1994?)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt thought he was gay as a teen (2015)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt on feeling like an alien (1992)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Not being subversive, just being themselves (1993)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: In Aberdeen, GOD IS GAY (1993)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Nirvana as the antithesis of homophobic jock rock (2013)
rocknroll1968 - Quote: Kurt on hanging with the gay crowd in high school (1993)

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NIRVANA SLASH ARCHIVE

homo sex rules

Entries tagged with topic:being a black sheep

Quote: Krist on developing a politcal consciousness (1996)

Lyrics: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)

Quote: Kurt the School Shooter (1993)

Quote: Krist feels married to Kurt (1990)

Lyrics: Territorial Pissings

Quote: Territorial Pissings & Valerie Solanas

Quote: Homosexual Sex Rules (1992)

Quote: The Cobain kid is a faggot (1992)

Lyrics: Even In His Youth (1991)

Excerpt: Kim comes out to Kurt (1994?)

Quote: Kurt thought he was gay as a teen (2015)

Quote: Kurt on feeling like an alien (1992)

Quote: Not being subversive, just being themselves (1993)

Quote: In Aberdeen, GOD IS GAY (1993)

Quote: Nirvana as the antithesis of homophobic jock rock (2013)

Quote: Kurt on hanging with the gay crowd in high school (1993)

quote of the day

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January 2024