Top 5 Nirvana Songs That Indicated Cobain’s Death Was Imminent

McBane here, looking to steal your sunshine.

Actually, no. This is not just a headlong foray into negativity, but a cautionary list to remind you to keep an eye on your favorite artists; this way you can predict ahead of time when they’re gonna pop, and use this info to...to show off how smart you are to your friends, I guess. Because really, what the fuck else are you gonna do with your info? Save these people from dying? What do you matter to anybody? Even among the few people on this planet you do know, who listens to you anyway?

So stay positive, gentle reader. On to business…

Kurt Cobain’s death was tragic and shocking, and still bothers many of us long years later. Could it have been prevented? Could someone have intervened? Admittedly, these things are impossible to know, and hindsight is always 20/20, but I would like to make the argument that perhaps (just perhaps) there was something in some of Nirvana’s songs that might have hinted at Cobain’s ultimately self-destructive self-loathing.

5) “I Hate Myself and Want to Die”

This was, of course, supposed to be cheekily sarcastic at the time. And it still is, I guess, I mean there's nothing about the song that indicates...

Guh. Let's just move on.

4) “Rape Me”

Much of Cobain’s lyrical intent throughout his career is speculative. In songs like this, that ambiguity can be maddening. Interpretations vary, but here’s what we do know: Cobain wasn’t a misogynist. He idolized women, liked songs by women, and perhaps even wanted to be a woman, in a way that wasn’t creepy so much as it was sad.

So no matter what you think: whether this is a song about how Cobain felt the media was destroying his image (or even just him), whether this is about martyrdom, whether this is supposed to be suggestive of the need for vigilante retribution on rapists…it’s obviously an attempt to make some sort of well-intentioned point. Yet in reaching that point (whatever it is), we come to learn that mental resignation, powerlessness, the absence of self-worth, and a lack of concern for maintaining physical integrity are seen as contextually normative to Cobain.

This is (probably) not a healthy outlook.

3) “All Apologies”

In this song, Cobain reaches one of his few moments of enlightened clairvoyance, and has answers ready for everyone, all some variation of this: he just sucks. He’s sorry he makes everyone miserable and he hates himself for being inherently unhappy, but he also understands by now that whenever he feels good, he feels tied down and dead inside. This is not a good combo. Also not good: this is considered one of Nirvana’s lighter songs.

2) “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”

You can look at this in two ways (I suppose). One is that this is just a straight-up tribute song to Farmer, but the thing is, Cobain probably liked her for a reason, you know? The second way to look at it is to say that this song was kind of a vehicle for Cobain to advance sonically beyond self-hatred, to let his rage creep out and infiltrate the rest of the world. (I read this not as that he hated the world so much, but that he had so much overflowing self-hatred that he finally needed somewhere else to put it.)

I mean again, though he may be writing from Farmer’s perspective to some degree, he sings about revenge, notes how much he preferred just being sad to how he feels now, and longs for Judgment Day to come.

Now this is an arguably understandable desire from Farmer’s point of view (she had a pretty shitty go of things), but again, why the fuck would you go out of your way to write a tribute song for Frances fucking Farmer if you didn’t feel some connection with her?

There’s also this; considering how awesome Seattle is, wishing for it to be destroyed is an especially bad omen.

Even just as tribute.

1) “Moist Vagina”

Whoops. Wrong list; this is actually number one on The Top 5 Nirvana Songs That Describe Raptor.

Number one on THIS list is…

1) “You Know You’re Right”

This probably has something (everything) to do with the haunting video and that it was released post-mortem, but I feel like this is the most powerful Nirvana song…depending on your viewpoint, it sounds either like a man mounting one last furious defense to expel his inner demons, or a man at last giving up on himself and hardily firing up the coal engine on the ghost train to hell. Either way, it belongs at number one.

In the song, Cobain is heedlessly propulsive in detailing how bad he feels that his woman (unfortunately, not Courtney Love) has left him. The overriding emotion he is left with is anger…not at her, but at himself, because he’s convinced she was right about him. Oh, and he screams “pain” at the top of his lungs something like 17 times.

Again, I’m just spitballing here. I'm sure Cobain experts could blow my ass apart.

But these seem to me like potential clues.