All language subtitles for Too Young To Die sub ENG

"Don't read
my diary when I'm gone.

OK, I'm going to work now.

When you wake up this
morning, please read my diary,

look through my things,
and figure me out."

Rome, the 4th of March 1994.

One of the world's
greatest rock stars

has tried to kill
himself-- Kurt Cobain.

His wife, Courtney Love,
gives the paparazzi the finger

as she rushes to the hospital.

News agencies prematurely
announce his death.

You know, he had an overdose.

And immediately, people
said he had died.

But he went into a coma,
and they revived him.

Even some of the band members
were given a phone call

that Kurt was dead.

So it was announced as
an accidental overdose,

when it was anything but.

It was an intentional
suicide attempt.

Kurt Cobain's
journals cover thousands

of pages-- sketches, lyrics,
letters on loose sheets

and in notebooks.

Thoughts of suicide
appeared early.

Kurt Cobain had a formative
experience in his early teens.

He was on his way to
school with two friends,

when they came across the
body of a man in the forest.

He'd hanged himself.

The body hung at a grotesque
angle, the limbs twisted.

Cobain stood there for an
hour looking at the corpse

until the emergency
services arrived.

Here
was somebody who

suffered from
clinical depression

probably from the
time he was 10.

He talks about trying
to kill himself

when he was 12 years old.

His own depression was enough
to drive him to create art.

Generally the people
that become entertainers

are people who have dysfunction.

And Kurt certainly falls
into that category.

"I'm going to
be a superstar musician,

kill myself, and go out
in a flame of glory."

The
environment that Kurt grew up

in in Aberdeen--
it had the highest

unemployment rate in
Washington State in that era.

Suicide, drug
abuse, alcoholism--

these were endemic.

Domestic violence-- these--
the rates of all these issues

were higher in
Aberdeen than virtually

any city in Washington.

So when you grow up in that
environment, where no one has

a job and it feels
hopeless, it's

very hard to come out of that
with a sunny disposition.

The northwest
corner of the USA.

This is where he grew up, the
hero of a whole generation,

the instigator of grunge.

This is where we hope to find
people who knew him back then--

traces of the young outsider.

We're following the route
a young man from the sticks

took on his way to becoming
a legend of the music world.

Well, this is
Aberdeen, Washington, victim

of the poor economy and stuff.

It was based on a timber
industry which has dried up.

Kurt was born here
back in February '67.

So yes, he was born in
Aberdeen, Washington.

OK.
Follow me on in.

I got something interesting
for you inside here.

We have a concrete statue
made by Randi Hubbard.

Her original intent
was that the statue

be placed in a city park.

It was done at her expense.

The city had nothing to do
with it financially and stuff.

But the city turned it down.

They feel it's a bad idea.

It glorifies drugs
and stuff, you know,

and suicide and not-- I
strongly disagree with that.

He's 100% responsible for
putting a city on the map.

I'm sure you would have never
heard of Aberdeen, Washington,

without Kurt Cobain.

My personal experience--
he was very decent person.

He had a heart.

He was a-- he was a good kid.

He liked pizza, and he liked,
uh, macaroni and cheese.

Kurt Cobain
grew up in Aberdeen

in humble circumstances.

His father, Don, was a motor
mechanic at a gas station.

But Kurt himself described
his childhood as happy.

He was given musical
instruments at an early age--

a child with talent.

He'd come
over to the house one time.

And he had a picture with him.

And he says, look, Grandpa.

He says, look what I painted.

And I was looking at it.

And I said, you
didn't paint that.

I says, you traced it.

And he got mad.

And he says, I did not.

He says, you get me some paper.

And he says, I'll show ya.

And so he draws Goofy and--
and Donald Duck for me

and just-- just like that.

He'd just do it real fast.

And by God, they
really looked good.

That's Goofy.

I mean, it only took him
seconds to draw that too.

Kurt was a good little boy.

He was very, very happy.

Always happy all the time.

Beating on drums or something,
on kettles, pots, and pans.

That's what we always
thought he'd be,

was a drummer, not a guitarist.

"It took me five years
to realize how rhythmically

retarded I was as a drummer.

So I sold some of
my father's guns

then used the money
to purchase my first

six-string electric guitar.

I learned everything I needed to
know from one week of lessons,

which resulted in the
famous musical knowledge

of the "Louie Louie" chords.

"Come as You Are."

Good.

"Come as You Are."

There you go, Kurt.

Play away.

When Kurt was
nine, his parents divorced.

He said it was the end
of his happy childhood.

When they got the divorce,
his mother, I guess,

couldn't handle him.

And so his dad took him.

And on the weekends,
him and Kurt

was-- go out camping
or fishing someplace.

And that was the happiest Kurt
had been all the time there.

He was just happy as hell.

He was with his dad.

His dad was with
him all the time.

Two years later,
the father married again.

Kurt couldn't get on in
the new household for long.

So he went back to
his mother, feeling

unloved and belonging nowhere.

But his parents' divorce had
a huge effect on his writing.

And eventually, it-- it came
out in many of his songs.

Of course, the
lyric from the song

that starts off "In Utero,"
"That legendary divorce

is--" you know.

He talked about the divorce
a lot in his lyrics.

I just want you to know

that I don't hate you anymore.

There is nothing I could say
that I haven't thought before.

There was a time where he was
kicked out of his mom's house

and he lived on the
streets of Aberdeen.

And it was from that time
that the legend of Kurt

living under a bridge began.

In my theory, an
argument is that he

never lived under the bridge.

I'd say we go to
the bridge right

here, 'cause this bridge
is straight down the road.

We're almost there.

This is Grays Harbor
Community Hospital.

When he was
homeless, he'd go in.

You hang out at the--
an emergency room,

because, you know, everybody
thinks you're just waiting

for somebody there and stuff.

You'd stay warm and dry.

That's the old Morck Hotel right
there, the big yellow building

up on the left.

That's another one of the
places Kurt used to crash a lot.

It's all closed down now too.

He crashed here late at night.

Nobody would-- you know, nobody
would harass you and stuff.

And he'd just get up
early in the morning

and take off and give
him a warm, dry place

to stay at night.

Legend
or reality, Kurt

Cobain himself contributed a lot
to the idealized outlaw image.

Everybody knows where it's at.

Everybody comes here.

There's been upwards of 600
people a month coming here.

Now with the weather
change, it's dropped off.

They wanted to see where Kurt
Cobain originally hung out.

And it's been fascinating.

I don't have to travel anywhere.

I just sit by the side
of the road and talk

to people who come here.

And it's been-- it's
really been eye-opening.

And I really do appreciate the
fact that this town produced

somebody of that talent.

This
was a peaceful place

at the time back in the day.

This was totally
secluded, both sides.

There was so much brush and
stuff growing up in a way.

So yeah.

It was private.

And a lot of people did
come down here and stuff.

It was a place where
teenagers hang out.

They'd get high and
stuff, obviously.

And for Kurt, it appeared to be
an inspiration for him to come

down here and write music.

Tori Kovac has created
a memorial park for Kurt Cobain

here.

Kurt's music-- there's
a lot of it I don't like.

But it wasn't
until actually when

he played "Unplugged"
in New York

that his pure sound
and emotion got to me.

Something
in the rain, yeah, mmm.

"MTV Unplugged,"
recorded in 1993,

was an artistic high
point for Nirvana.

It's
a piece of granite

that's engraved with
quotations from Kurt Cobain.

One of the quotes
that I took from him

was, "Drugs are bad for you.

They will fuck you up."

And in this community, that
has such a problem with drugs

and young people, I
thought that the quotation

coming from Kurt Cobain to
them was important to say.

The city of Aberdeen,
whose property this

is on, they came to me and
said, we need to remove that,

and blasted out
the U-C-K. It made

some people feel better that
they could exercise some power

over this terrible word.

Aberdeen
in the mid '80s.

The town was in decline.

Kurt Cobain was 17, had
dropped out of various schools,

and was picked up from
time to time by the police

for graffiti spraying.

He was living from hand to mouth
and surviving on casual jobs.

He had been
so poor for most of his life.

He got food stamps, which
is government assistance.

He'd gotten unemployment.

Well, he worked jobs.

He had several different jobs.

And he even worked
with me carpet

laying a couple of times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was working at Burger King.

Kurt was working at The
Polynesian, at ocean shores.

But yeah, we had
day jobs, you know?

But, you know, life in
Aberdeen's pretty boring,

you know, I guess, when
you're young like that.

At some
point, Kurt Cobain

moved into his own
small house, together

with the bass player of the
punk rock band, the Melvins,

his great role models.

Punk rock perfectly suited
his attitude to life.

He also
had a relationship

with Tracy Marander, who
they lived as a joint couple.

And-- and I think she was
very supportive to him

for a number of years.

And-- and then he begged and
borrowed whatever he needed.

She is, in some ways,
the patron saint,

the untold hero of Nirvana.

She not only paid Kurt's
rent, clean the apartment,

kept him going.

So that was Kurt's first
serious girlfriend.

And he was with her for
at least three years.

And he wrote the song
"About a Girl" about Tracy.

Aberdeen
gets so much rain.

So I think that's why they
have so many musicians

that come from this
area, is the rain.

It forces you to stay inside.

It's just part of
the environment.

Living down here,
there's nothing to do.

So I think more or less, people
picked up musical instruments

just out of boredom.

It was something to do.

You know, hang out with your
friends, make noise, you know?

Kurt was happiest
making noise with his friend

Krist Novoselic.

The two of them later formed
the nucleus of Nirvana.

The drummers kept changing.

The video recording on the
box set, the metal box set,

was recorded upstairs in this
green building right here.

The video was shot right
up here in this room here.

And a very small room, you know?

Kurt was singing into the wall.

It was
always a necessity.

Whatever was needed
to be done, he would

do it to further his music.

It was always Kurt, yeah.

Kurt, he was always
the lyricist.

We practiced-- I'd say we
practiced-- we practice seven,

eight hours the same song
until-- just until Kurt

was happy with it, you know?

It was always
pretty much focused

in those days around
music-- survival and music

and survive to
make or play music.

Ryan Aigner was
responsible for getting Cobain

and co. their first gig.

He organized the
band's appearance

at a place called Raymond.

So in here, I was
pushing them out of that safety

of their little rehearsal
room and saying,

let's go test this
out somewhere.

And-- and so, Raymond was
probably the wrong place

in some ways, you know?

But it also was a
good galvanizing

effect, where they--
you know, they

sort of took one on the chin.

They weren't embraced and
loved for everything they did.

The backwater audience
was unsettled by the band.

The musicians were sort of odd
and clearly had no interest

in playing to a load of hicks.

Raymond's kind
of the wrong direction.

You see the
metropolis, the urban.

That's where you
think you're headed.

And Raymond-- has nothing
to do with Raymond

or any other rural town.

It was just, you know, he wanted
to go to Olympia-- Olympia was

the big city-- or at
least east, because we

were as far west as you
could possibly go, you know?

So let's go-- let's go east.

Aberdeen's population
consists of highly bigoted,

redneck, deer-shooting,
faggot-killing logger

types who ain't partial
to weirdo new wavers.

The dream of becoming
a professional musician

gradually gained pace.

Olympia, the capital of
the state of Washington,

was the next stage-- a
university city with a very

different atmosphere
from the rundown

lumberjack backwater
of Aberdeen.

Olympia was full of students
and had a lively music scene.

There's still one rehearsal room
after another in Band Alley,

as it's know.

And the ethos of Olympia
is still creative and cool.

That was the first time
I'd ever been to a party

where it was a solid mohawks.

And we played this party.

And some guy got on the mic and
said, drummers from Aberdeen

sure are weird
looking, you know?

They didn't think
I was cool, 'cause

I didn't have a mohawk and but.

But I was in it for the
music, so I didn't care.

Like Aaron Burckhard,
Dave Foster is a former drummer

with Kurt Cobain's band.

With various bands,
like Psycho Samaritan,

they're still following
the lead set by Nirvana.

Kurt
had names all weird.

Like, our fifth
name was Nirvana.

We went through five names.

Our first name was Skid Row.

And then we played live
here in Olympia, at the KAOS

radio station midnight show.

And the very next day, I
showed up for band practice.

He drew a picture on an
easel with a paintbrush

of a pen, a writing pen
with this cap all chewed up,

you know?

And that was our second name,
was Pen Cap Chew, right?

And then from Pen Cap Chew,
we went to Ted Ed Fred.

And then we went to Bliss,
was our fourth name.

And then the fifth
name was Nirvana.

And that's when I got fired.

Here they are, Nirvana!

Well, they-- you
know, they were

playing opening acts a lot
midweek-- terrible shows,

nobody there.

Parties-- they did
the KAOS radio thing.

And that was really a
big turning point, 'cause

so many people heard that.

The tape was bootlegged.

And then things really
started spreading.

And then when they would play,
people would actually show up.

--green State
College in Olympia, Washington.

Welcome KAOS 89.3 FM,
Olympia's community radio.

Slowly the band turned
into a professional enterprise.

Kurt Cobain moved to
Olympia with Tracy.

The city became
their creative focus.

On Pear Street, they moved
into a house that was chaotic,

spartan, Bohemian.

- I
- remember he had--

he always ate like a bird.

He never had a
stove or a fridge.

At the house, he didn't have
a stove or refrigerator.

He had a toaster
oven, and that was it.

He was never the norm.

He was always Bohemian
type, you know?

And he never-- I don't know.

He was just different.

Different, you know?

He had a picture
of Bobby Sherman--

a portrait of Bobby Sherman
in his bedroom, you know?

He just did weird
things, you know?

He was always weird, different.

He just was really
into his art.

And I mean, his whole house
was covered with it-- you know,

sculptures, drawings.

Always playing his guitar.

He was pretty much a homebody.

He didn't like to go out.

Morbid motifs,
collages with lots of flesh,

extracts from anatomy books.

Kurt Cobain had painted
and drawn from a young age.

And to the end of his
life, the visual arts

remained an abiding passion.

You know, he thought that
maybe he could be an artist.

He never pursued it that much.

I mean, I've had the benefit
of seeing a lot of his art

that no one's ever seen.

It's all locked in
a vault somewhere.

A few items are in the
"Cobain Unseen" book.

But I've seen 25
paintings of Kurt's

that I think-- I'm a music
critic, not an art critic.

But I think they're very good.

They show a lot of
talent, I think.

Art, as an alternative
to the rock star's existence.

Years later, at the
height of his fame,

Cobain used to withdraw
for weeks on end and paint.

Kurt called
me up one Sunday afternoon

and said, you have to
come over right now.

And I said, Kurt, you know
I-- it's a Sunday afternoon.

I don't know if I have film or
I have to get cameras together.

And he's like, no, the flowers
are going to wilt. I'm like,

what is he talk-- I said, OK.

So I ran over to his house.

And he made this collage on
the floor of the living room.

And he wanted me to photograph
it for the cover of "In Utero."

So not really my forte,
but I set up and did it.

You know my-- my
favorite shot from that

is Kurt and Frances--
Frances toddled

over to look at the collage.

And so I took just
a few quick snaps.

Kurt and Courtney had probably
been in their pajamas all day.

But you know, this is about
7 o'clock in the evening.

When he was
living in Olympia,

Cobain only had thoughts
of a career in music.

His journals of the period
are full of interviews he

imagined giving as a rock star.

That was to remain a
distant vision until 1988.

"Greetings.

Nirvana is a three piece
spawned from the bowels

of a redneck logging town
called Aberdeen, Washington."

Only together for
seven months, they

have acquired a single, a
demo, and an LP, success, fame,

and a following of millions.

Seattle, 1988.

Nirvana had arrived
in the big city.

We are driving in Seattle
on Leary Way in the area

kind of bowered Fremont.

And it's in this neighborhood
which 25 years ago was far more

rundown that Nirvana came to
record their first recording

session ever.

It's where they did
"Love Buzz," the single.

And it's also where they
recorded the album "Bleach."

This area used to be
super-duper cheap.

You could buy a building
here for nothing.

And nowadays, it's,
like, super expensive

than lots of restaurants.

This little humble
building to the left

here is the recording studio
that Nirvana cut "Bleach."

In some ways, it's the place
that made Nirvana Nirvana.

They were very well prepared,
and they were good players.

And I also remember
thinking, this guy's voice

is really interesting.

I like the way he sings.

Even then, you could tell.

You can listen to
these recordings,

and you can hear the character
of the voice is very good.

They did everything just,
you know, almost one take.

It was literally
like they played

live in the studio almost,
literally just banged it out.

Trying to place
the first demo with a record

company prove
difficult. Tracy sent

out dozens of copies accompanied
by forthright letters

from Kurt.

"We're willing to
pay for the majority

of pressing of 1,000
copies of our LP

and all of the recording costs.

We basically just want
to be on your label.

Do you think you could please
send us a reply of 'fuck off'

or 'not interested' so
we don't have to waste

more money selling more tapes?

Thanks.

Nirvana."

The demo did, in fact, result
in their first record contract

with Sub Pop, a
new Seattle label.

In Sub Pop, the label
was just getting started.

And I knew those guys
had a record label.

And they said to
me, well, look, you

hear something good at the
studio, run it by us, you know?

We're looking for bands
to put on our labels.

So the Nirvana thing was a
logical one to pass on to them.

And they didn't initially
like it that much.

It was too metal.

But the label
boss caught a Nirvana gig

and gave them a chance.

The first single, "Love
Buzz," was a critical success

and was quickly followed
by the album "Bleach."

Kurt himself paid for
the cost of "Bleach."

It cost $606 to record.

There's probably no
album in the history

of the world that was
recorded so cheaply

and ultimately
made so much money.

The area that we're standing
in, back in the late '80s,

was really a hotbed
of the music scene.

There are funny
stories about that.

This neighborhood's a little
bit dangerous, even still

today sometimes.

But when Kurt first
came to Seattle,

he was so afraid
he was going to get

mugged that he stayed in his
car until the show began.

Kurt Cobain
would have to get

used to life in the tour bus.

He was determined to go on
tour straight after "Bleach."

On their first trips
across America,

Nirvana was so
poor that they had

to hope for a big
enough audience at night

to be able to pay for the
gasoline to the next gig.

The years on the road had begun.

In
your room, I'm not older.

In your eyes, I'm not worth it.

Gimme back my alcohol.

Gimme back my alcohol.

Gimme back my alcohol.

Another myth
is that people think Nirvana

was an overnight success.

Well, so here was somebody
who very much wanted fame.

And so what that meant was
put an album out, tour.

He played five tours before
"Nevermind" came out.

They played thousands of shows.

They had toured Europe.

They had been everywhere
at that point.

So it was hard work
that made them famous.

The initial Nirvana shows just
weren't that impressive really.

They were OK.

You could tell that there
was something going on.

But they obviously
needed to work on it

a little bit, which they did.

And so it was very--

usually very crowded in
the van and very smelly.

And a lot of, you know,
juvenile jokes going around.

And, uh, it was--
it was a good time

but-- but-- but I think
pretty trying for everybody,

and I think-- I think
especially for Kurt.

I mean, he suffered from
a lot of health issues.

And I think that it was
really, really trying for him.

And quite possibly
those early years,

you know, may have
forced him into drug use

so-- just because of
his health issues.

Kurt Cobain shaped
every aspect of the band

and its performances.

Nothing was left to chance.

He came
into the-- came into the loft.

And I had this white
backdrop paper set up.

And said, oh, God, that's
just a boring white backdrop.

I'm like, well, I don't know.

What should we do?

He's like, well, let's
draw something on it

or paint something on it.

I look around,
and there happened

to be can of black spray paint.

So I was like, here,
you knock yourself out.

And that's what he came up with.

And it is kind of a symbolic,
and Chad was kind of always

posed under the
minus symbol there.

On the way to the
top, Nirvana replaced drummer

Chad Channing with Dave Grohl.

And Kurt split up with his
longstanding supporter,

Tracy Marander.

What he needed now,
he said, was someone

he could talk to about art.

The dead weight of
the past had to be

jettisoned, both privately
and professionally.

That was the change
from the first demo

into "Bleach," and
then continuing

from the "Bleach" album
into the "Nevermind" record,

is the songs got
a little simpler,

and the melodies
got more complex.

Seattle, the
17th of April, 1991.

In a club called OK Hotel,
Nirvana tried out a new song,

"Smells like Teen Spirit."

It's not
enough to save you.

Oh, no, I'm not afraid of you.

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello--

The song was
destined to be a worldwide hit.

The music press in
Britain called Nirvana

the leading band of
a movement that had

been given the name "grunge."

I'm a
liar, and I'm famous.

Here we are now.

Entertain us.

The anti
attitude of an ignored

and lost American youth.

Yeah!

Hey.

Yay.

The "Nevermind"
album sold millions.

And "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" became the anthem

of a whole generation.

Nirvana were now jetting
around the world.

But their star
status robbed them

of some of their credibility.

The outsiders were being
swallowed up by the mainstream.

"I kind of feel like a
dork writing about myself

like this as if I were
an American pop rock

icon demigod or a
self-confessed product

of corporate-packaged rebellion.

But I've heard so many
pathetic, second-rate Freudian

evaluations from interviews
from my childhood

up until the present
state of my personality

and how I'm a notoriously
fucked up heroin addict,

alcoholic, self-destructive,
yet overtly sensitive,

frail, fragile, soft-spoken,
narcoleptic, neurotic little

piss and who at any minute is
going to OD, jump off a roof,

wig out, blow my head
off, or all three at once.

Oh, please, God.

I can't handle the success!"

Here we are now.

Entertain us.

I feel stupid and contagious.

He desperately
wanted to be famous.

But once he became famous, he
found that there were people

counting on him to do things.

And Kurt did not
respond well to that.

Nirvana.

The winner is Nirvana,
"Smells Like Teen Spirit."

I'd like to thank my
family and our record label

and our true fans.

Yeah, I think Kurt Cobain
had troubles because

of the intense pressure
on him from the media

and fans and the industry.

You know, he was an
overnight sensation.

He didn't
want to be the spokesperson

for a generation, I think.

He didn't like all
that attention.

That's-- last time I saw him,
actually, was at a Breeders

concert in Olympia.

And I was sitting in the back.

And all of a sudden, here comes
this guy that sat next to me.

And we looked at each
other, and it was Kurt.

You know, he's like, Dave?

I'm like, Kurt?

And we hugged and shit
and started talking.

And he had on, like, some
goofy half-pulled-down shit.

You know, it was hard
to recognize him.

And these two girls
walked up and said,

aren't you Kurt Cobain?

And he's like, Dave, I gotta go.

And he split.

A public life which
the star also used as a means

to an end.

I'd like all of you
people in this room

to know that Courtney
Love, the lead singer

of the sensational
pop group Hole

is the best fuck in the world.

A stressed-out Kurt
Cobain's provocative appearance

in a TV show.

He got to know Courtney Love,
the singer with the rock

band Hole, on his way up.

The two had star
status in common,

as well as drugs
and a background

of dysfunctional families.

At their first meeting,
Courtney is supposed

to have punched
Kurt in the stomach,

her way of showing affection.

They became the Sid and
Nancy of the media society.

Their breakdowns
in excesses were

meat and drink to the popular
press, which both loved

them and hounded them.

They married in Hawaii in 1992.

Two
characters in a play,

where one is the villain one
day, and the other is the hero.

And the next day, it switches.

It at times was combative.

But at other times,
it was not combative.

But you add these other
external elements.

You add fame.

You add money.

You add drugs into that picture.

And you add not just
fame but huge fame.

And it's a very tumultuous mix.

In 1992, their
daughter, Frances Bean,

was born.

Kurt loved his child
more than anything else.

A journalist alleged that
Courtney Love had taken

drugs during her pregnancy.

This led to a long
drawn-out and grueling

battle with the authorities
about custody of the child.

Life in the
fast lane took its toll.

But Kurt Cobain also
exploited the image

of the vulnerable artist.

This was from the
Reading Festival

in 1992, the second
time they played that.

And this was the show
where Kurt was wheeled

out in a wheelchair,
pretending that, you know,

that he was sick.

And there were
rumors going around

that because of
this drug addiction

he wouldn't be able
to play the show.

And it was just absolute epic.

Again and again, Kurt
Cobain withdrew completely,

taking refuge in
painting and in drugs.

For a time, he refused
either to make another record

or to go on tour.

But finally, a new album
did appear, "In Utero."

It was on the following tour
that Cobain's health gave out.

A concert in Munich
was cut short.

It was destined to be his last.

This here's a picture

I was talking about of Kurt
alone onstage from behind,

and this is from 1992.

And yeah, you just
see that body language

there, I mean, his curvature of
the spine and just this sense

of being up there all
alone, you know, just really

alone in the world
at that point,

because they were
getting so big.

An isolation that
was largely due to drugs.

Kurt
didn't truly become

a drug addict until after
"Nevermind" was even released.

He certainly had
experimented with opiates.

And they come up in some of
the lyrics on that album.

There's no denying that.

But even Kurt in
his diaries talks

about how drugs were messed up.

What I saw as
being a guy who is basically

the same age-- 18 or
19 or 20 years old--

he didn't even drink that much.

He hardly ever drank.

I never really saw him
use a lot of drugs.

That was just not-- I mean,
a lot of us did, not Kurt.

He liked to be in
control most of the time.

I didn't see this person
who passed out at parties

or got sick.

That's not who I knew in
1986, 1987, through 1989.

To devote himself
undisturbed to drugs,

Kurt Cobain moved
into cheap motels

on the outskirts of Seattle.

He was
in those sleazy motels

for part of that time.

He was trying to escape.

Heroin's effect is such
that somebody is high,

they don't want to do anything.

They want to get off the couch.

Kurt was not very productive
during this drug periods.

At the height
of his addiction,

Kurt Cobain was spending
hundreds of thousands

of dollars a year
on drugs or rehab.

Well, there
were so many turning points.

In the life of somebody
that's an addict,

it's 1,000 slow suicides.

With Kurt, though,
clearly the intervention

that happened in Seattle in
late March of 1994, before Kurt

went to Los Angeles, he
went and bought a shotgun

and hid it in his house.

And then he agreed
to go to rehab.

Los Angeles.

While Kurt Cobain was
in a rehab clinic,

Courtney Love was trying
to get clean in the luxury

Peninsula Hotel
in Beverly Hills.

After a few days, Kurt
Cobain abandoned rehab.

I remember running
into him about two weeks

before he passed away.

And he actually
gave me his phone

number, his new phone number.

He was like, oh, give
me-- give me a call.

I want to hang out with you.

It's like, I don't think he had
a lot of friends at that point,

because, well, he
was a drug addict.

And drug addicts just hang
out with other drug addicts

or-- you know, in the
house watching TV.

"I feel
compelled to say

fuck you, fuck you, to those
of you who have absolutely

no regard for me as a person.

You have raped me harder
than you'll ever know.

So again, I say fuck you.

Although this phrase has totally
lost its meaning, fuck you!

Fuck you!"

I don't know.

What would you think?

I don't have anything
to say about it, really.

It's-- I wasn't
very happy about it.

I felt like the world was just
that much less exciting place

to be now all of a sudden.

And-- and I also felt like
there were several times when

I wanted to call or reconnect
with him and thought,

I should give him a phone.

And I never did.

And I instantly just knew
that I'd be regretting

that for the rest of my life.

I was at home.

And I remember holding my-- I
had my five-month-old daughter.

And it came over
the news, right?

And I just had just
chills, you know?

And I set my daughter down.

I was like, whoa.

And then the phone rang.

And that was "Entertainment
Weekly" saying, oh, Kurt died.

We need photos.

I'm like, you're kidding.

And I thought, oh, that bastard,
like, you know, drug overdose.

Just it pissed me off.

My mom called me
and said, you've

been listening to the
radio or watching the news?

And I'm like, no.

And she goes, well,
you better sit down.

And she goes, yeah,
Kurt shot himself.

And I'm like, is he dead?

I was just, like, in shock.

And she's like, yeah, he's dead.

Fuck, I couldn't believe it.

When they called us, first,
she says-- she says she got it.

And she called us and
said, well, he done it.

And I asked Iris, the
one who was on the phone,

and I said, done what?

And she said, he
committed suicide.

And, uh, it shook
her up to be ill.

This
was a public park.

Kurt did occasionally
come over to this bench.

Courtney did say after his
death that she scattered some

of his ashes over
here and also some

in the house under some trees.

So there is a public
memorial in Seattle to Kurt.

There's no official statue.

There's no anything.

No park named after him.

This park has become the
unofficial kind of memorial

to Kurt Cobain.

For me, it's a very
sad place as well,

to imagine that-- to imagine
that there was a point where he

was so distraught living in
this beautiful house with all

the talent he had, and
yet he wanted to die.

And I have empathy for
it, but it's also very sad

to think that that's
the choice that he made

and that he felt that
hopeless in his life.

His house was
somewhere over here?

- That's his house.
- Oh, this?

Oh.

He died in a green
house that was

in the back of the property,
which has been plowed down.

I feel like that's the view
that MTV would put on the news,

like, right here, just
kind of that piece.

Aspiring cameramen went
up the street behind,

climbed on a ladder, and
then shot down on his house.

So that's also the picture
that everyone remembers.

And sadly, there was a
picture of Kurt dead lying

in the green house that a
photographer shot from a ladder

in the back there.

So did you know him?

I did, yeah.

Cool.

I'm sorry.

This is the last-- this is
the last song of the evening.

What
else should I be?

All apologies.

What else should I say?

Everyone is gay.

What else should I write?

I don't have the right.

What else should I be?

It would be nice to eventually
start playing acoustic guitars

and be thought of as a
singer and a songwriter

rather than a grunge
rocker, you know,

because then I might be able
to take advantage of that

when I'm older and
sit down on a chair

and play acoustic guitar like--
like Johnny Cash or something,

you know?

And it won't be a big joke.

Who knows?