To celebrate the February 20th Birthday of Kurt Cobain, the former lead singer of Nirvana, we have selected our favourite five Nirvana songs to remember and respect the life of one of music’s pioneer voices.
This article mentions the act of suicide. If you are thinking about suicide or experiencing a personal crisis help is available. No one needs to face their problems alone. Lifeline Crisis Hotline: 13 11 14
Kurt Cobain was born February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. If he were alive today, he would now be 53 years old.
On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle at the age of 27; police concluded he had died on April 5 from the act of suicide.
During his life, Kurt Cobain was a pioneer for grunge and rock music with his band Nirvana. To celebrate the life he lived, we have picked out our five favourite Nirvana tracks. Yours may be different to ours, but that’s the glory of music, and that’s also what made the band so incredible to this day.
5. ‘Drain You’
“Drain You” was famously written on the spot at Sound City Studios during the Nevermind recording sessions. Cobain never revealed who inspired the love song, but it was written just three months after he met Courtney Love.
4. ‘Come As You Are’
Thanks to radio play, this song as the second single from Nevermind helped launch Nirvana from a popular band into a massive global success.
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3. ‘Heart-Shaped Box’
This song still sounds incredible and genre-defying to this day. In a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone, Courtney Love recalled hearing Kurt work on ‘Heart-Shaped Box.’
“We had this huge closet,” she said. “And I heard him in there working on ‘Heart-Shaped Box.’ He did that in five minutes. Knock, knock, knock. ‘What?’ ‘Do you need that riff?’ ‘Fuck you!’ Slam. [Laughs] He was trying to be so sneaky. I could hear that one from downstairs.”
2. ‘All Apologies’
These days it’s hard to hear this song as anything but a suicide note. “I wish I was like you,” he sings to his huge global audience. “Easily amused.” It ends with him repeating the line “all in all is all we are” 13 times.
1. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
Look, you’re not cool for pretending to not like this song. Leaving it off this list would just be offensive. Despite its popularity, however, Kurt Cobain was not a fan. “I was trying to write the ultimate pop song,” Cobain told Rolling Stone in 1993. “I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies . . . It was such a clichéd riff.”
