Kurt Cobain and other worm food

Shocking title, I know. But it’s been over thirty years and he’s still dead. When you look at actual statistics, the “27 club” is a myth. Musicians die at all ages, but the tragedy exists none the less. Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison et. al. all left us at such young ages when they still had so much more life in them.

Chuck Berry, famous for so many iconic songs in the late 1950s, didn’t have a number one hit until 1972 when he was in his late 40s. Gerard Way was about 29 when My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr still tour well into their 80s.

And don’t get me started on the legendary Willie Nelson, well into his 90s and still actively touring and recording!

But I don’t think Cobain is remembered for dying young. He and his ilk are remembered for what they did with music.

And I’m old enough to remember that shift. One day, hard rock was glam metal shredders in the spotlight, and dark gruesome shredders in the metal underground.

There were echoes of what was to come. Anthrax and Faith No More were flirting with rap, Red Hot Chili Peppers were already getting BIG with fusing more funk with their stylings, and then came Jane’s Addiction.

The Grammys created a whole new category for metal in 1989, and sure, Metallica was a shoe-in, but this new band with their first album, Jane’s Addiction, was strongly in the running!

So winner was!

Jethro Tull.

What?

The ‘established’ world, still in the recently post-PMRC days, had catching up to do, but rock was three steps ahead.

“Nevermind” was like a bomb going off. Earlier that summer, Pearl Jam had released their album “Ten” and that was gaining traction.

Most of us called it “Grunge”, and the establishment, looking to be more expansive, called it “alternative”.

Practically overnight the shredders of all sorts, but especially the bloated, ready-for-Mtv poser glam-metal hair-bands were GONE. Gone from Mtv and gone from radio.

Peculiar side effect. Literally ALL of the major rock stations were playing “alternative”, which seriously led me to question, “It’s every damn station. ‘Alternative’ to what?”

And Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were the leading faces of it.

Then the stupid S.O.B. martyred himself on the altar of eternal youth culture.

Now, kids who weren’t even born yet when he died, remember his name, know his face, and know at least some of his music.

One or two might know “Leadbelly”, but only because Cobain cited him as a hero of his.

But for how long?

I think most of the young people know John Lennon’s face and music (d. 1980), The memory of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix is slipping to the point where even if most youngsters know their names, fewer and fewer could tell you what their music sounded like, or particularly care.

You’ve now read deep into this. For that I am grateful.

This blog post isn’t about Kurt Cobain.

It’s not even about Janis Joplin or Lennon.

When I write a blog post, it is because I have something to say. I do it to say the things I need to say. It’s like therapy. But in the exercise of writing, there’s little point if I don’t sometimes share those thoughts, so I post blogs from time to time.

I am so very well pleased when people happen across a blog post and leave a comment, or a ‘like’, or somehow mark the moment when they read it and connected with words therein, even if the moment is but fleeting and to be utterly forgotten in minutes.

Heck, I forget my own posts once written and done.

Trust me, I am not opining my mortality or the futility of the exercise of writing. Because it is the act of doing it in the NOW that I relish.

Nearly a week ago, I posted a very similar blog about Ben Selvin.

A man who is literally in the record books for recording an ASTOUNDING number of songs through his career. A man who had MANY number one hits, selling millions, and some of those songs staying on the charts for weeks to months. Yet, somehow, of my meager amount of blog posts, the one about Ben Selvin garnered not one comment or like.

How fitting considering its theme. How utterly devastatingly ironically appropriate.

If you asked 20-year-old me who Ben Selvin was, I also would have had no clue, and likely no interest.

But it leads me to wonder.

How long before no one can recall what a Jimi Hendrix song sounds like? Are we there already?

How long before Kurt Cobain rests in silence, his legions of fans passed on, and only mad historians even aware of his artistry?

Probably sooner than is comfortable to contemplate.

So that’s the point of it.

Blink and it’s gone.

We’re all worm food, but rather than that being a crippling, sobering thought, allow it to be a CLARION CALL that you should make your life EXTRODRINARY right NOW!

Worry not over a legacy, let your future planning be about how to live NOW and for the rest of YOUR life in joyous, exalted peace, or comfortable, relaxed elation, or whatever.

It ultimately won’t matter how many people like you or dislike you. Just be YOU! And I very much hope that YOU like you!