Title: Kurt Cobain: Journals
Author: Kurt Cobain
Rating:
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 2003
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780141011462

„Kurt Cobain filled dozens of notebooks with lyrics, drawings and writings about his plans for Nirvana and his thoughts about fame, the state of music, and the people who bought and sold him and his music. More than twenty of these notebooks survived his many moves and travels, and have been locked in a safe since his death. His journals reveal an artist who loved music, who knew the history of rock, and who was determined to define his place in that history. Here is a mesmerizing, incomparable portrait of the most influential musician of his time.”

Buy the Book în English

Television is the most evil thing on our planet. Go right now to your TV and toss it out the window, or sell it and buy a better stereo.

In case you are wondering why I chose to start with the introductory part of Kurt Cobain’s Journals or even why I chose to include them at all it’s because there is no other way of finding a general statement that can encapsulate in a paragraph why they matter or/and disclose some random facts about them.

Writing about Cobain’s mind and his way of thinking or seeing things would be the same as trying to put into a coherent phrase what Alice felt when she fell down the rabbit hole – you just keep falling and there’s nothing to hold on to and the deeper you go the less it makes sense but all in all you know that no matter where you end up it’s a fascinating place to be.

WORDS suck. I mean, everything has been said. I cant remember the last real interesting conversation Ive had in a long time. WORDS aren’t as important as the energy derived from music, especially live. I don’t think ive ever gotten any good descriptions from lyrics sheets, except WHITE ZOMBIE whos lyrics remind me that theres only so many words in the English language, and most good imagery has been used, as well as good band names, LP titles and not to mentions the bloody music itself.

That’s what his Journals are – a fury of thoughts on anything and everything – from personal thoughts on his own life to lists of what the band should do next, comic strips, articles from various magazines that talk about Nirvana when they launched, lyrics to Nirvana songs, musings on the world, conversations and abortion babies, letters to friends and family, treatments for his videos (like Rape Me).

My lyrics are a big pile of contradictions

It is a gate to the his alter ego (Kurdt) and his truest self all wrapped into one and I say this because there are discrepancies between what he wrote and how things were in real life. He downplayed his ambitions and wants for Nirvana under a blanket of bravado and ennui while deep down inside he was dying to get his big break and as such in an exercise of balance, the more he downplayed his own thoughts and feelings the more he exalted the external factors such as the reaction of people to one of his first gigs and how photographers and label representatives were all over him.

When reading his journals you have to take everything with a grain of salt and maybe do your own search of what really happened in those days.

Nevertheless his writings are fascinating even as they are at times depressing and scary taking on a heavy and somber tone through which his creativity seems to be the only beacon to shine a light on a brilliant mind.

• Strengths

  His creativity, his thoughts on music, the disparaging notes on „to do lists” for the band that throw in some normalcy for good measure

• Weaknesses

  The fact that the Journals are reproductions of his own handwriting which on some pages is indecipherable.

• Recommendations

  Treat it as a novelty book and don’t take it too seriously if you’re not a fan. If you are a fan then why haven’t you already read this?!