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"It's really shocking and there's so many horrible aspects of what happened and what people have done to each other [in Bosnia-Herzegovina]. I think that's an aspect of it that a lot of people have ignored, like, rape wasn't even considered a war crime, like even in Nuremberg, nobody was tried for rape. You know, and I was hearing stories in refugee camps about how women rape victims were just kind of lumped in with everybody else and they weren't really having any special needs and I think that's just an indicator of people's perspective towards women.
"The band has an organization. It's kind of my pet thing, it's called the Balkan Women's Aid Fund and what we do is solicit foundations for grants and ask people for individual donations, too, and we did some work with the Italian Red Cross and we got some money to the Autonomous Women's House working out of Zagreb. And all of these organizations that we work with they have, like, a feminist perspective and we think that's important because you get those kind of values across, you change people's values overall."
-Krist, March 1994, MTV News
"Kurt was a pro-feminist person. And he was anti-homophobic. He actually said if you're homophobic or don't respect women, and so forth, so forth, don't come to our gigs, don't buy our records. Saying something like that has a really big impact. And that's one of the legacies, I think, that he's left."
-Ana da Silva of the Raincoats (one of Kurt's favourite bands)
When Nirvana Came to Britain (BBC documentary 2021)
"I think it's one of grunge's greatest legacy, is actually the killing off of misogyny in rock for quite a while. You know? I mean, really, it was very passe to be a misogynist in rock there for a while. And that was helped by guys like the guys in Nirvana, and the guys in Pearl Jam, and bands like us [L7], and Babes In Toyland, and Lunachicks, and then Riot Grrrl later. So, yeah, I think that's a big deal."
-Donita Sparks, 21 Jul 2015, Women of Rock Oral History Project
"I'm a fan of rap music, but most of it's so misogynist that I can't even deal with it. I'm really not that much of a fan. I totally respect and love it because it's one of the only original forms of music that's been introduced, but the white man doing rap is just like watching a white man dance. We can't dance. We can't rap."
-Kurt, when asked his opinion on white rap, 20 Sept 1991
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.
Interviewer: Some of the people who responded to the song, "Rape Me", said they were offended by it, in some way, or that they couldn't understand it. Could you explain the meaning of the song to perhaps clear up...
Kurt: Well, we're the cover boys of about ten different magazines this month and in every one of those magazines we explain it pretty good. It's an anti--let me repeat that--ANTI-rape song. I got tired of people trying to put too much meaning into my lyrics, you know, as being too...not making enough sense, so I decided to be really blunt and bold. I just thought, it's a kind of a funny, just reward for a person who rapes--like a guy, like a mean asshole who rapes a woman, violates her, then he goes into jail and get raped, you know. And I think it's a kind of justice, in a way.
Krist: Maybe being offended and not understanding it goes hand-in-hand.
Int: Yeah, well the only reason they were offended is that they obviously took it as a macho, you know--
Krist: They've been programmed by too many beer commercials, or something.
Int: Yeah, I mean, I don't really know how you would misunderstand something like that--
Kurt: I thought we made our stance on rape clear within the last year-and-a-half. Plus, anyone who knows about us would probably know that we are pretty much anti-rape, at this point, you know?
Int: Yeah, you'd think that would be clear, but I guess these were people who didn't know that much about you and were just listening to a record. I mean, you had trouble with Saturday Night Live, right? I mean, trying to get that song played. Why is that if it's this straightforward anti-rape song? Why are they having a problem with it?
Krist: Maybe you shouldn't be talking about it. It's like, taboo, you know? Daddy's bonking the little stepchild, "We don't talk about that here! Nope!".
Int: What's controversial about an anti-rape song? I guess it's the nature of...
Krist: It's a taboo.
Int: Taboo subject.
Krist: Yeah.
-24 Sept 1993
Interviewer: So, I'm assuming they just approached you and asked you to contribute a song* and you said yeah...
Krist: Here's a song from the AIDies. You wrote that song in the AIDies, Kurt. What period were you in?
Kurt: [pauses, joke hits him] Shut up.
Dave: Third period after lunch...
All three: [snickering]
Interviewer: I'm supposed to ask some general AIDS questions. Do you think contributing to something like this, that music can be used as a way to educate people about AIDS?
Krist: You know, as long as it raises money for treatment and hospices and things, that's what really turned me on, that it helped people who were suffering. As far as information, I get so much information, to speak for myself, I don't even know what the heck's going on.
Kurt: The record isn't going to give you any information. The money will.
Krist: Yeah. There's so many theories out there, is HIV even--
Dave: --having anything to do with AIDS?
Krist: --does it lead to AIDS? It's really hard. So, I guess the best thing you can do is help the people who are suffering from it.
Interviewer: Krist, I guess in some recent interviews you've tried to steer away from political subjects, so as not to be pigeonholed as the political one.
Krist: Heavy-handed. Yeah, there's no reason to dwell on it, because I'm just a bass player in a rock'n'roll band. Just go on and on and on about things. And you can talk all you want, but the main thing is that you should be doing things, and that's not just for me, that's for everybody, you know? Why talk about things in the media and then just go home and drink beer...
Kurt: Yeah, it's much more effective to do a benefit for Bosnian rape victims and come up with--[turns to Krist] How much money did we make for that, you know?--
Krist: Fifty-five grand.
Kurt: Yeah, I mean, that makes way more of an impact than talking about it.
Krist: And we got this organization called Balkan Women's Aid Fund--and [to interviewer] maybe you can flash the address and you can send donations to them--and we're working with women's groups in Croatia and Austria and Hungary and Serbia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, so we don't have any nationalist ties whatsoever. A lot of these women are just caught in the middle of it all, women and children, and so I'm just pluggin' away at that, still. I haven't given up and I just take advantage of the media and just mention the address, and if people want information they can write and I'll send them information back. But to just harp away on things, over and over again, people lose interest, you know.
We could be like We Are The World, on stage celebrating famine in Africa. You know [sings] "We are the world!" and there's kids, while they're doing that, totally starving to death. It's gross.
Interviewer: You went over to Bosnia...
Krist: I went to Croatia, I didn't go to Bosnia, no way. I wouldn't do that for Bob Guccione, Jr! [founder of Spin magazine, who assigned Krist to report on the Bosnian war for Spin]
All three: [laugh]
-24 Sept 1993
*to the No Alternative compilation to fund AIDS relief
tags:
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
tags:
- date of story:pre-band era,
- date:post-band era,
- decade of story:1980s,
- decade:2010s,
- film:montage of heck,
- media:film,
- media:quote,
- person:kurt,
- person:wendy o'connor,
- topic:'it runs in the family',
- topic:art & artists,
- topic:being a black sheep,
- topic:bisexuality,
- topic:coming out,
- topic:family,
- topic:feminism,
- topic:friendship,
- topic:gender-nonconformity,
- topic:homophobia,
- topic:homosexuality,
- topic:sexuality,
- type:factual
Kurt: I really don't know why. I like to wear dresses because they're comfortable. If I could wear a sheet, I would. I don't know what to say, if I said we do it to be subversive then that would be a load of shit, because men in bands wearing dresses isn't controversial anymore.
MM: Do you approve of cross-dressing?
Kurt: Of course I do. Of course. Men shouldn't wear a dress because it's feminist, particularly, but because it's comfortable. Sometimes my penis will literally fall asleep or feel as if it's dropped right off because it's been constricted by wearing tight Levi's, and I'll have to wear baggy pants or a dress instead.
(Melody Maker, date unknown)
"Well, when we played that No on 9 benefit in Portland, I said something about Guns N' Roses. Nothing nasty-I think I said, "And now, for our next song, "Sweet Child o' Mine.'" But some kid jumped onstage and said, "Hey, man, Guns N' Roses plays awesome music, and Nirvana plays awesome music. Let's just get along and work things out, man!"
And I just couldn't help but say, "No, kid, you're really wrong. Those people are total sexist jerks, and the reason we're playing this show is to fight homophobia in a real small way. The guy is a fucking sexist and a racist and a homophobe, and you can't be on his side and be on our side. I'm sorry that I have to divide this up like this, but it's something you can't ignore. And besides they can't write good music." [Laughs]"
-Kurt, The Advocate 1993
"If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us-leave us the fuck alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records."
-Kurt, 1992, in the liner notes for Incesticide
