Essay/Term paper: Kurt cobain

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Biography

Kurt Cobain


A look Into the Life and Career of a Legend; A Proposal


Kurt Donald Cobain was the lead singer/songwriter of the band Nirvana,
until April 5 1994 when he committed suicide. Troubled by depression, chronic
stomach problems, and an addiction to heroin, his ailments in his personal
life showed through in his music. His music evolved from the hard "punk" sound
of their first album, to the intelligent "tell all" tales of his fourth and
final album In Utero. Through his music he changed an era of "lost souls", to
a generation with a vision of who they were. The songs he wrote and played
captured the attention of the world, but also brought him the fame and fortune
that led to his downfall. The pain and the hate of his life filled the lines,
tough hidden under his sarcasm. He couldn't take the voices in his head that
had plagued him all his life, that compiled with his dislike of the fame caused
him to end his own life. The life that gave him no joy.

The first time I heard Nirvana they changed my life. I was sitting in
class and one of my friends tapped into the P.A. system. He hooked it up to his
Walkman and started playing Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana's first single. I
was sitting in class day dreaming and suddenly I was pulled out of it by this
amazing sound. A few seconds later the principal shut off the song, but by
that time I was hooked. Later that day I went to the record store and bought
their second first and second album. I took them him and threw them into the CD
player and fell in love. Finally I could identify with music, the words that
poured from the speakers spoke my life. Until that moment I had no direction
and felt alienated from the rest of the kids my age. But Cobain's music touched
on what I was not able realize at my age, that being yourself is all right no
matter what the "trendy" junior high school kids thought. Though I would not
understand the impact of his music or what his words meant to him, and that
those songs would pull me through the hardest times in my life.

Research Question

How did his depression influence his music, and how did it show up in
his work?


Outline and Source Summary

Since the first time I heard Nirvana and their music, it had an impact
on my life. Though I never stopped to think about the meaning behind the actual
words that were spoken. From the time that Nirvana started back in 1986, they
have changed faces both on the inside and the outside. Kurt Cobain was born in
a small town in Aberdeen, Washington in 1967(Wilson 2). He grew up in a broken
home and had many problems along the way, because of his hyper-active nature
nobody in his family wanted him(Wilson 2). He was passed around from aunts and
uncles, to his grand parents. He started his creative process first through
art(Wilson 2-3). Where by later he turned down two art scholarships to art
school, and never did finish high-school. Then when he was 15 he started
playing the guitar, also he found the underworld of drugs(Wilson 3-4). He
played the guitar and did drugs by himself until the age of 18, when he joined
his first band(Wilson 15).

I intend to show how the events of his early life influenced the course
his life took, and how it would later be found in his music. Also the actual
words from the songs hold a great deal of insight to his life. Also the
progression of his first band's, to the final trio that would make history. I
have three different kinds of research resources; a book, video, and the
lyrics to all of his songs. All of these give different looks at the life of
Cobain and what exact events lead to him committing suicide. In my opinion out
of the resources I have the lyrics of his songs paint the clearest picture;
which also are open to individual interpretation. The words along with the
knowledge of his life, will be the instrument on how to gauge his depression
from the basic "punk" sound of his early material, through the "pop-rock" phase,
to the "story telling" of his later work. His forceful sound and his forceful
stage performances, or only one side of him musically. As evident in the
intense acoustic performance that he did for the MTV "unplugged" series, he
proved to everyone that saw the show that he had such a love for what he did.
Though it was evident that he looked in pain, whether it was from his stomach
pains or his depression is unsure(Wilson 60).

My research has been focusing on the way Cobain's life has shaped his
music from the early years up until his death. I also want to focus on the
severity of his heroin use and depression, and prove how the increase of both of
these affected what he wrote, and what was the source of the depression. My
research so far has led me to believe that these two symptoms increased from his
view of the hope and sincerity during that point in life. Because the biggest
points of drug abuse occurred after he dropped out of high school, during the
fame of Nirvana's album Nevermind, and after that he had tried to clean himself
up in re-hab, to no avail(Wilson 11). I am using all of these resources to
find out the common thread that ties together his depression, to his sarcasm in
his writing, and if the sarcasm was his way of making fun of himself for
feeling the way he did. I want to put all of these questions about his
depression and the hidden meaning of his lyrics together to show the how the
depression he felt made its way to his music, and how the fame of his music
fueled his desire to end his life in April, 1994.