I spent my teen years growing up in the 80's. The 80's, like every decade, were very peculiar. I can't believe how we used to dress and how we used to style our hair. I had a "flyback" hair style with a "mullet" tail in the back. I laugh when I think about it. However, what is more funny is the fact that the hairdo use to be in style. Another defining mark of the 80's was its music. It is truly the decade of "one hit wonders". Remember "867-5309"? How about "In a Big Country"? And we will never forget "Come on, Eileen". The music of the 80's was fun and feel good.
Another sound began to arise at the end of the 80's. It was called "grunge". If the 80's were marked by music that made you feel good, the 90's were marked by a sound of anger and despair. One of the defining songs of the 90's was a song called "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. The song was about a kid who commited a violent act in his classroom. The song tells us that the kid was not only picked on by his peers, but also abandoned by his parents.
One of the most popular bands of the 90's was a group called Nirvana. Kurt Donald Cobain was the leader of Nirvana, the multi-platinum grunge band that redefined the sound of the nineties. Cobain's parent's divorced when he was seven and by his own account Cobain said he never felt loved or secure again. He became increasingly difficult, anti-social and withdrawn after his parent's divorce. Cobain also said that his parent's traumatic split fueled a lot of the anguish in Nirvana's music.
On April 7th in 1994, at the peak of his success, Kurt Donald Cobain committed suicide. When police broke down the door they found Cobain dead on the floor, a shotgun still pointed at his chin and on a nearby counter a suicide note written in red ink addressed to his wife and the couples then 19 month old daughter Frances Bean.
The suicide note ended with the words "I love you, I love you." Two days after Kurt Cobain's body was found about 5,000 people gathered in Seattle for a candlelight vigil. the distraught crowd filled the air with profane chants, burnt their flannel shirts and fought with police. They also listened to a tape made by Cobain's wife in which she read from his suicide note. Several distressed teenagers in the U.S. and Australia killed themselves. The mainstream media was lambasted for it's lack of respect and understanding of youth culture (Mick Ronson).
Stay tuned for Part 5. In the mean time, give me your thoughts on why Cobain killed himself and why so many teenagers imitated his suicide.
1 comment:
I think you pretty much summed it up why Cobain killed himself. He was never shown real love, a stable relationship, a father figure, etc. That insecurity caused him to become an outcast full of anxiety and dispair. He clearly had an amazing calling on his life to be able to reach out to literally a whole generation and with no real concept of the Father or His love, the devil had a field day taking his destiny and using it to fill a generation with hatred and anger... both things Cobain himself were filled with due to lack of revelation and being blinded by the devil.
It's amazing there aren't more stories like his. Being such an insecure, undefined person (despite his popularity and the following of his music), sadly, there was no reason for his suicide to NOT happen. He was a fish out of water in the spotlight. Watch any of the Nirvana videos and it is clearly reflected. Even Cobain's look... his hair covering his face, darker clothing, very non-standout-ish. He was hurt, scared, unable to pinpoint what it was, and the reality is that he was a tourmented soul who had no one to speak true encouragement to him, that he was worth something. that he was valuable. that he had a destiny on his life. him the man, not just his talents or abilities.
In regards to the other teenage suicides... these kids clearly didn't have a stable father and mother figure in their lives to define them and build them up and encourage them because they turned to Cobain to have an image to immulate. Instead of striving to be like their Heavenly Father, they turned to someone they could relate to... someone else who lived a tourmented, anger-filled life. Even though they didn't know him, they could connect with him... and to try to have definition (that we all long for), they did whatever Cobain did, down to the last breath.
Another reason may be that these kids saw themselves in him and they didn't have any other friends or know any other people that they could relate to and so when the only other person on earth that they knew about died, they felt they were left alone and would rather choose the alternative. After all, if it was good enough for Cobain, it was good enough for them. It must have been the right thing to do for a person in their situation, right?
Like you always say, you are going to let something or someone define you. In these poor kids cases, as in Cobain's case, they and he let the troubles of this world, the lies and deceptions that we are told to pray to "keep far from us" take them over completely. When that happens, you truly feel like you have no reason to live.
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