Tuesday, April 15, 2008

"Feeling" Nirvana


I was thirteen years old when Nevermind came out. I still remember sleeping over my friend Steve Spooner's house watching Smells Like Teen Spirit debut on MTV (ah, music videos, those were the days!) I remember being fourteen years old in the Summer of '93, right before my sophomore year in high school, reading all the music mags, anticipating Nirvana's album coming out at the end of Summer. I swear, I wish I could describe the feeling I had for Kurt. He knew. I remember hitting play for the first time on In Utero. From the very first chord of Serve The Servants, I knew. He hadn't let me down. I can't really describe that emotion, but it was powerful.

It was only a few months later when The Beavis and Butt-head Experience came out on CD. I was on thanksgiving break from boarding school, and there couldn't possibly have been two things I was more in love with at the time than Beavis and Butt-head, and Nirvana. Lo and behold, the very first track on the album was a Nirvana song!!!! Can you believe it??? But the thing that really stopped my heart was the song. I Hate Myself And Want to Die was an outtake from In Utero and rightly belonged on that album, were it not for Kurt fearing the mass audience would miss the (saracastic) intonations. But that song stopped me right in my tracks. I've never forgotten how it made me feel, and it would be a waste of my time to make any attempt to describe how or why it did. In stead, i'll leave you with it, plus two more songs which, in the days before downloads, I obsessed entirely over, years ago, when I was more young.

Nirvana - I Hate Myself And Want To Die

Nirvana - Curmudgeon

Nirvana - Sappy

3 comments:

hilfitz said...

I have SOOO many summer of '93 memories! One of my friends at the time was really into acid and had interactions with kurt cobain regulary... like the one time where kurt was in his closet with a dragon, my other friends had to put him in a cold bathtub where he mumbled baby talk for an hour! (glad i wasn't there.) I was too busy building a fort in my backyard listening to Snoop & Warren G, Frente and Red Hot Chilli's ahhh... summer of 93...

kiki said...

hmm.. summer of '93.. i was all about wearing cons and flannels. i loved nirvana... and red hot chili peppers. i remember in my 6th grade art class we had to draw an record cover and i drew the chili peppers asterisk logo (probably because the nevermind cover was too inappropriate for grade school... yes.. i was in grade school..)

Vita said...

Summer of '93 - my last summer in Russia, spent on boat fishing with me dad. It would be 3 years before I buy my first Nirvana album. I was in 7th grade, walking around with greasy hair and dark eye make-up.

Also that year- Pearl Jam, LIVE and Metallica.