Why did Kurt Cobain commit suicide?
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[edit] Introductory Note
"I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now"
Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was an American songwriter and musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Nirvana.
With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana's second album Nevermind (1991), Nirvana entered into the mainstream, popularizing a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. Other Seattle grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden also gained wider audiences, and as a result, alternative rock became a dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States during the early-to-middle 1990s. Nirvana became considered as the "flagship band" of "Generation X", and Cobain, as its frontman, found himself anointed by the media as the generation's "spokesman." Cobain was uncomfortable with the attention and placed his focus on the band's music, believing the band's message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, challenging the band's audience with its third studio album In Utero (1993).
During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with heroin addiction, illness and depression, his fame and public image, as well as the professional and lifelong personal pressures surrounding himself and his wife, musician Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The circumstances of his death have sometimes become a topic of fascination and debate. Since their debut, Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, sold over twenty-five million albums in the US alone, and over fifty million worldwide. Since his death, Cobain has been regarded by many journalists and listeners as one of the greatest musicians of his generation, his groundbreaking influence enduring.
[edit] Reason
Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol. Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. Love later stated that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.
On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love said that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.
Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain's drug use that took place on March 25. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. The intervention was initially unsuccessful, with an angry Cobain insulting and heaping scorn on its participants and eventually locking himself in the upstairs bedroom. However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30. The staff at the facility were unaware of Cobain's history of depression and prior attempts at suicide. When visited by friends, there was no indication to them that Cobain was in any negative or suicidal state of mind. He spent the day talking to counselors about his drug abuse and personal problems, and happily played with his visiting daughter Frances, the last she would ever see of her father. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility (of which he joked of earlier in the day to be a stupid feat to attempt). He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle, on a flight where he sat next to Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses. Even after the prior animosity from Nirvana to Guns N' Roses, and Cobain's own personal animosity to Axl Rose, Cobain "seemed happy" to see McKagan. McKagan would later say that he knew from "all of my instincts that something was wrong." Over the course of April 2 and April 3, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. He was not seen on April 4. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. On April 7, amid rumors Nirvana was going to break up, the band pulled out of that year's Lollapalooza music festival.
Cobain's suicide note.
On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A suicide note was found that said, in part, "I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium were also found in his body. Cobain's body had been lying there for days; the coroner's report estimated Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994
