"I need an easy friend. I do. With an ear to lend. I do. Think you fit this shoe . . .I'm standing in your line."
Wow. It's quite a surprise for someone to send me a "Help!" message in a Coke bottle. Usually the one on the deserted island spends his idle time sending bottle after bottle floating off to the horizon, hoping that it falls into the hands of some rich guy whose mid-life crisis responds well to an adventure sailing Old Blue. Now suddenly, the folks on the mainland want my help?!
Oh, you must have heard what CD I've been stranded with on this sandy empire.
Well. Even though Kurt Cobain is dead and I'm on a desert island,
the two of us once, and not too long ago, existed in your society.
And I just happen to have with me (don't ask) a pen, paper, bottle,
CD player, and Nirvana's MTV's Unplugged in New York. We can
help you.
Whether it ran through the veins of misguided Vietnam soldiers or their arch-enemies, the hippies, there was a certain vibration that coursed through the 60's and 70's. Passion! As a result of people simply caring a hell of a lot about things, people were in motion. They were alive, struggling, and improving society. But the well soon ran dry, and by the time the 80's rolled around, the progress smoothed over into a plateau, creating the most mediocre generation ever to exist. "Love myself better than you. Know it's wrong. What should I do? I'm on a plain. I can't complain."
Miracle: Even though surrounded by people comfortable in states of apathy, several individuals arose from nothing into a most passionate existence. By my standards, these men and women were geniuses, to develop such an intense emotion without seeing it first in others. They were like flowers growing in the most barren, infertile soil, magically producing all the nutrients they needed to survive. And as if this weren't enough, they proceeded to excrete these vital nutrients for other beautiful flowers to grow on.
Apathy is repressed emotion. In order to free apathy's roots from your soul, you have to really shake up the surrounding earth. Punk rock used this fact of nature to break through the granite wall of apathy. To reach that buried anger and anxiety, the punks sang angrily and anxiously.
Largely misunderstood, punk rock came to be labeled as blind rage, useless teenage angst, lacking depth and meaning, consisting of "`the urge to holler, shriek and whoop it up for the arbitrary, unnegotiable hell of it'" (Nehring 86). It is true that some bands took advantage of the punk audience, and emerged simply to sell their loud cries by tickling humans' instinctual desire to scream. Even sadder than these bands' immoral manipulation of their audiences, these pseudo-punks created dead ends for others who wished to bring about action with their angry music.
Only the bands with the highest sense of integrity were able to rise against this predicament. Such is the case with the Seattle-born band, Nirvana. Along with rock and roll, Nirvana struggled to "reclaim its identity as a music of cultural opposition, not only distinct from but antagonistic to its own cultural conglomerate, rock"(Willis 76). Nirvana knew that the line between entertainment and politics was fading, and they took advantage of music as a medium to disseminate their message. They weren't "just singing along with the rebellion" (Nehring xxi). They were the rebellion.
In order for positive change to come about, one must look at what is around him and question its moral value and purpose. If dissatisfied, he must do something about it. He should expect things to be better and have faith in his ability to make them better. In shooting for a desired result, one must shoot against the undesired reality. But not with guns and not with irrational ranting and ravings.
To revolt, it is almost always necessary to first rebel, and the
natural emotion involved with rebellion is anger. Today, though,
anger has the reputation of being useless, over-emotional, and
offensive. To the contrary, "'Anger can be a sane, creative' force,
but only if it becomes 'conscious enough'" (Nehring xvii).
"Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea/ Distill the life that's inside of me." I have this image in my mind of a prince drinking his fancy mint tea in a hand-painted porcelin cup. However, he doesn't know that the tea is actually very cheap. His servants bought it right out of some slave-driven Third World Nation. The prince ignorantly smiles at all the riches he owns. "Aaah, this is the perfect life," he thinks. And with each sip, he slowly sucks the life right out of the world. We hear it being sucked out of Kurt Cobain as the song comes to a withering death. The guitar slows down and lingers on a few chords. We feel like we are moving in slow-motion. And finally it ends. Except the crowd cheers.
Nirvana's efforts to shriek against nihilism were often misperceived as nihilistic, but the band was sincerely attempting to concentrate on such problems as sexism, apathy, and repression (Nehring 93). In wishing for a better world, punk actually focused on reality and questioned why things had to be the way they were (Nehring 86). Nirvana Bassist Krist Novoselic described the auteur of the band, Kurt Cobain, as "the one to walk up to people and scream, 'Why? Why? Why?'" (Mundy 40).
Ok, time to take a break. Pop in MTV Unplugged in New York, and go to track 9: "Something in the Way." Try to listen to it and continue reading this. You can't, can you? Whatever you try to do, cook, read, clean, drive, when this song comes up, you cannot help but slow down. Suddenly, everything goes black, and you're crawling along the sidewalk. The ridges on the pavement are scraping your knees bloody and raw. Your stomach has collapsed within itself. You cannot help but be a huddled mass on the sidewalk. Can't get back up. It hurts. Just wish the blackness would envelop you. Make it all go away. The fluid is leaking from your eyes, your actual insides coming out. The song ends, and the light comes back on. The car continues to drive in slow motion, pulling you along. You think to yourself, "What the hell am I doing here?" You feel hopeless. Nothing makes sense. What is the trick? What is keeping you from being happy, from being loved, from reaching your ideals?
Much of the controversy over Cobain's lyrics is that they are hard to understand, both in their non-linearity and their physical inaudibility. Those suckers are hard to hear above Kurt's wailing. The media thought such characteristics proved the music meaningless. People failed to see the potent, subversive power of emotions that cannot be pinned down to words. Half-formed feelings own a "looser and more flexible relation to the dominant ideology, than does our reason" (Nehring 124). The band did not accidentally become powerful by not being able to comprehend their emotions. They made a conscious effort to express such feelings. Nirvana's self-awareness gave their anger meaning and power.
This is the part where a few of you readers may be let down for a moment. For a moment. Nirvana did not claim to be world-changers. They wanted only to be an inspiration for others to change the world. Novoselic once said in a Rolling Stone interview,
But by simply existing in a fashion you feel is right, and inspiring others to question everything and search for what is right, you are existing in a revolutionary manner. I don't know if Nirvana was only being modest, but they were, in fact, changing the world.
Unfortunately, Nirvana's political and social discontent turned towards the countless number of flannel-zombies who were purchasing their music. In describing the feelings involved with making Nevermind, Novoselic claimed,
Kurt Cobain was hesitant about signing onto a major label, but he
felt there was no other way to make Nevermind accessible to
people that could only get to K-Mart to buy music (Pareles 32).
However, in Kurt's attempt to reach out to teenagers growing up in a
situation similar to his, he was consumed by the corporation.
Kurt admitted that the pressure within the grunge-punk scene
stopped him from taking the risk of putting a pop-like song on
Nevermind (Fricke, "Kurt Cobain: the . . ." 38). But this type
of song, slower and more subdued, was the direction Kurt finally
mustered up the courage to head in by the time they produced MTV
Unplugged in New York. Kurt expressed his frustration with being
stuck in a rut due to being labeled as New Wave. He bravely said,
"You have to take a chance and hope that either a totally different
audience accepts you or the same audience grows with you" (Fricke,
"Kurt Cobain: the. . . " 56).
Before attempting to leave behind their label and possibly their
current audience, Nirvana took one more stab at the battle between
punk losers and punk icons. For the production of their second album,
In Utero, Nirvana chose album-producer Steve Albini, who was
known at the time for his "budget blasts of punk underdogs" (Pareles
32). Kurt felt that Nevermind's clean finish had possibly
corrupted the punk sound they had been shooting for (Pareles 32). So
they went for a rawer tone with the new album. Where Nevermind
took days to make, In Utero was recorded in seven
consecutive hours (Pareles 32). Their glossy days were
over.
However, Nirvana didn't seem to have found themselves. In a Rolling Stone interview, shortly after they had completed In Utero, Kurt admitted, "I just don't feel the same, emotionally, about our music anymore. With this record, I'm just deadpan. My emotions just don't come out during it" (Azerrad 56).
"Teenage angst has paid off well. Now I'm bored and old." Whether it was boredom or courage, Kurt's hot anger turned cold (but still useful) while producing MTV Unplugged in New York. Unplugged showed that they were looking for a way to affect people "without resorting to the big bang guitar effect" (Fricke, "Kurt Cobain: the. . . " 38).
So we are left up in the air over the reason Nirvana finally left the loud punk scene behind. Maybe grunge was never Kurt Cobain's thing. Or maybe Nirvana's misuse and false media depiction burned them out in the end. Either way, the end seems to justify the means in this particular instance.
For MTV Unplugged in New York, Kurt "manipulated his scrub-brush yelp to a plaintive, seductive pop vibrato" (O'Dair 120). He finally learned how to scream without yelling. It's as if Nirvana was saying, "Okay. You've seen us angry. You know we are unhappy and want change. Now, all distractions aside, here is what we are saying. We are pleading with you. Please just listen and relate to what we are saying."
After all of Nirvana's previous loud anger, Unplugged in New
York's calm sound was not only a relief to our ears but touched
us in a mysterious place. Though the songs were the same non-linear
ones from their previous albums, In Utero and
Nevermind, their different presentations turned the songs
upside-down. They were now audible, and their emotions had a new
twist to them, a new feeling, unseen by any punk-rockers before them.
It was a sort of still-kicking plea.
Kurt admitted that he never wanted to be a lead singer; he always
wanted to just play rhythm guitar in the background (Fricke, "Kurt
Cobain: the. . . " 36). The loss of the loud electric guitars and
drums left Kurt quite conspicuous and vulnerable. We actually felt
awkward while we listened to him because he appeared so. We
think to ourselves, "Maybe we should leave this guy alone. . . maybe
he wants to be left alone. . . . " But we hear in his voice that he
is already alone. Completely. Even though we feel Kurt is being
"violated by [our] presence," we stick around for some
strange reason (Mark 17). Kurt's vulnerability strengthened
the medium necessary for him to deliver Nirvana's meaning. This
defenselessness is an example of "the intensity which comes from
discarding self-protection because you figure that you don't have a
choice or that you've got nothing left to lose" (Mark 26-7).
When my fourteen-year-old eyes witnessed the news coverage of Kurt Cobain's suicide, I suddenly grew weirdly upset over the death of a man responsible for music that I didn't even listen to. My mind raced back to the visual memory of a kid at school approaching the girl walking in front of me through the halls, and saying, "Hey, Amanda. I got a new CD," and holding up Nirvana's Nevermind, with its notorious naked baby-boy in water on the front cover. I had heard my brother play a few of their songs, and they were just too "loud" for me at the time. But seeing this guy with that music in his hands caused my mind to make a weird association. Here was the kind of guy that I secretly imagined to be my savior. The dark-haired, mysterious freak with a heart of gold. One who knew my pain, and knew how to get me out of it. And then there was my big brother: in simple terms, my idol. These two deities, and their impact on me, may remove some of the mysteriousness in my response to the 7 o'clock news one season-less night in 1994, but not all of it. I felt like the wise man's heart had stopped just as he was about to tell the fisherman how to . . .
"Skin the sun
Fall asleep
Wish away
The soul is cheap
Lesson learned
Wish me luck
Soothe the burn
Wake me up"
Unplugged is the symbol of transcendence for Nirvana. It
represents all of Nirvana's struggles. In their new versions of
Nevermind songs, we hear the remains of their revolution
against apathy and sell-outs. In their folksy re-do's of In
Utero songs, we are flowered with lyrics of disdain for anything
bought-and-sold. And through their simple switch from head-banging to
pop sound, new emotions are uncovered and old lyrics sound new. As
for Kurt Cobain, we see a much awaited personal triumph: the escape
form the punk world.
Nirvana's music not only questions everything but makes us
question everything. Kurt Cobain never tells us how to change the
world. He doesn't even say that the world needs to be changed. If he
gave us the answers, the actual "how," we would never learn how to
search for the truth on our own. The truth is ever-changing, just as
the moment is ever-changing. Wisdom fails if it becomes out-dated
truth. When you latch onto the truth with closed fists, you leave no
room for changing perceptions and changing instances. Wisdom is not a
pot of gold attained at the end of the rainbow. It is an energy, an
ability. Beauty, love, and possibilities. Given the tone of Kurt's
voice, we are made aware that something is deeply wrong. We cannot
physically turn our heads the other way. The subversive power of the
music sets us on our merry, struggling way.
I believe in the struggle. I may be stranded on this desert island all alone, but I at least have my own thoughts to struggle with. I can fight for the truth all on my own. One day, when I am saved and brought back to your world, a day I look forward to very much, I can struggle with the rest of mankind once again. The most successful societies consist of the most individual individuals. If everyone worried about being the best he could be, then there would be a world of greatness. Love, productivity, creativity, and purpose! Until I come back, I am not going to pity my lonesome self. I am going to take advantage of the serenity of this solitude and struggle for myself. For the sake of me, you, and, ultimately, the world.
Now, have I answered your cry for help? Or are there only possibilities in the place of concrete answers?
At this time, you can continue crying and moaning, and looking
for a dry place to call your home while the angels and devils fight
to claim you for their own. Or you can. . .
"It is now time to make it unclear. To write off lines that don't
make sense. One more special message to go. And then I'm done then I
can go home."
"Who needs action when you got words?"
In that case, "I'll start this off without any words."
Azerrad, Michael. "Live Through This." Rolling Stone 2 June 1994: 55-6.
Fricke, David. "Kurt Cobain: The Rolling Stone Interview." Rolling Stone 27 Jan. 1994: 34-8+.
Mark, M. "'It's Too Late to Stop Now.'" Stranded: Rock and Roll
for a Desert Island. Ed. Greil Marcus. 2nd Ed. New York: De Capo
Press, 1996, 11-28.
Mundy, Chris. "Nirvana." Rolling Stone 23 Jan. 1992:
39-41.
Nehring, Neil. Popular Music, Gender, and Postmodernism: Anger
is an Energy. London: Sage Publications, 1997.
O'Dair, Barbara. "Recordings Might Have Been." Rolling Stone 1
Dec. 1994: 120-2.
Pareles, Jon. "Nirvana, The Band that Hates to be Loved." The New York Times 14 Nov. 1993, sec.2:32+.
Smucker, Tom. "Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey." Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. Ed. Greil Marcus. 2nd Ed. New York: De Capo Press,1996, 161-170.
William, Chris. "Nirvana on 'MTV Unplugged'." Los Angeles Times 16 Dec. 1993, F13.
Willis, Ellen. "Velvet Underground: Golden Archives Series." Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. Ed. Greil Marcus. 2nd Ed. New York: De Capo Press, 1996, 71-83.