Kurt Cobain

"OK, you trained monkeys, everybody jump up and down. Let's bring back the good old pogo!"

"I spent all of my life trying to stay away from sports and here I am in a sporting arena."

"This song is dedicated to Frank Zappa, and River Phoenix, Fred Gwynne who played Herman Munster, Dixie Lee Ray, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neil, and you, dumb ass, who just threw water on me."

"It's better to burn out than to fade away."

"Genius is a weird and inappropriate word, and hard work is underrated, but Kurt Cobain had a distinct and personal take on the world, and generally, when someone strikes a chord with his audience, that’s what people respond to...I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly a fan of Nirvana when I was asked to work on In Utero, but during the course of making the record I came to appreciate that they were genuine about their band and their music, that Kurt was capable of sophisticated thinking, and that they and their music were unique."

"Nirvana were like...power-chord music with the occasional Sonic Youth-y flip-out in it. But the power of that band is Kurt Cobain's voice, which is just fucking caramel–a beautiful rock voice."

"Cobain is rarely described as a technical virtuoso, but he did have a fantastic, intuitive feel for the guitar, mirroring his gift for unshakeable John Lennon-inspired songcraft. It looked and felt so natural as an extension of his body (despite the back/stomach/mental pain it allegedly caused him) that every drop of song seemed to show exactly what was happening on the inside — punk’s urgency clasping hands with every classic pop melody he ever absorbed."

"Never a technical player, Cobain rarely relied on flash, preferring to make his point through dynamics instead, fleshing out his songs with judicious use of distortion and feedback. Even his “solos” tended to be self-effacing in the extreme; the guitar break in Teen Spirit, for example, merely reprised the vocal line. But Cobain’s deft use of harmony and lean, tuneful sense of line more than made up for any lack of chops, shoring up the songs so exquisitely that it was easy to overlook how elegant his playing was."

"He had a touch most guitarists would kill for."

"People were trying to call me to do interviews on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. They want me to say some poignant shit about some poor guy who blew his head off. It's just like, "Give me a fuckin' break, man"...Just say the guy made some good records, and let's get on with it."

"I remember watching Kurt come through and thinking, "God, this music is nuclear," This is really splitting the atom. They raised the temperature for everybody. Manufactured pop never looked so cold as when that heat was around. Nirvana made everything else look silly."

"I was simply blown away when I found out that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and I always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering "Man Who Sold The World." It was a good straightforward rendition and sounded somehow very honest. It would have been nice to have worked with him, but just talking would have been real cool."

"Cobain was very shy, very polite, and obviously enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t awestruck at meeting him. There was something about him, fragile and engagingly lost."

"Kurt's got a literary bent, and jokes that he likes "anything that starts with a B. I think I like Burroughs best, and I'm into Bukowski and Beckett.""

"I'm sorry I couldn't have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen Center, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him. Or maybe not."

"He was the premier icon of grunge, the raw, guitar-heavy, blunt-spoken style that will stand for all time as a signifier of the Nineties."

"That kid has heart."

"A couple weeks ago, one of my students gave me a mixed tape of Kurt Cobain and there was a version of "Black Girl" of great artistry. Great vocal control and subtlety, it's almost as good as Leadbelly's."

"He's the most talented person I ever worked with because he was talented in so many different ways. He's a guitar player and a lead singer and he wrote all the songs. He did everything for Nirvana that it took Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to do for Led Zeppelin. Kurt also designed the album covers and wrote treatments for the videos. He even designed the t-shirts. He was really a comprehensive genius when it came to the art of rock and roll."

"I suddenly realized Michael [Pitt] was much taller than Kurt, and much more buff, actually. Kurt was a wee little man, with these big piercing blue eyes and this tremendous smile — and that's one thing that nobody can replicate."

"I still dream about Kurt. Every time I see him in a dream, I’ll be amazed and I get this feeling that everyone else thinks he’s dead. It always feels totally real, probably because I’m a very vivid dreamer. But, in my dreams, Kurt’s usually been hiding - we’ll get together and I’ll end up asking him, "God, where have you been""

"I met him a few times. As a writer I had enormous respect for him. He was an incredible writer and an incredible singer. And when I met him I found him to be a very special person. He was one of those special people. There was a light inside him that you could see. He had a charisma that went beyond his physical presence."

"Kurt really reminded me a lot of John [Lennon] in his writing, singing, and guitar playing. More attitude than technique, but he had incredibly strong rhythm and a great solo sense."

"Rage and aggression were elements for Kurt to play with as an artist, but he was profoundly gentle and intelligent."

"I went to see Nirvana at a small club called the Pyramid on Avenue A in New York City. It was hard to hear the guitar, but the guy playing and singing had a vibe; he hopped around like a muppet or an elf or something, hunched over his guitar, hop hop hop, hippety hippety hop. I loved that. When he sang, he put his voice in this really grating place, and it was kind of devilish sounding. At the end of the set he attacked the drum kit and threw the cymbals, other bits and finally himself into the audience. Later I saw the same guy passing the bar. He was little, with stringy blond hair and a Stooges T-shirt. I felt proud."

"[Cobain] was a revealing symbol. He called himself passive-aggressive. There was self-pity, whining. There was a diminishment, a diminution. He was sitting there in his sweater, hunched over his guitar, looking like a little lost boy. Compare that with the great figures of my generation: Jimi Hendrix. Pete Townshend. Keith Richards."

"Kurt Cobain represents a very legit, realistic outlook. Before that, in my head, to be a white artist was to be privileged. You celebrated the glamor and you got respect. But here's someone that was really taking a hip-hop stance on all of that. Who doesn't play their hit single in concert? Are you crazy? He took that nihilistic Sonic Youth approach, that tortured-everyday-guy thing, to the hilt"

"Cobain changed the course of where the music went. There are certain people where you can see the axis of musical history twisting on them: Hendrix was pivotal, Prince was pivotal, Cobain was pivotal."

"In Kurt’s voice I could hear his love of bluegrass music, of Bill Monroe and Leadbelly. It’s in the twang of his voice."

"Yeah, he talked a lot about what direction he was heading in. I mean, I know what the next Nirvana recording was going to sound like. It was going to be very quiet and acoustic, with lots of stringed instruments. It was going to be an amazing fucking record, and I’m a little bit angry at him for killing himself. He and I were going to record a trial run of the album, a demo tape. It was all set up. He had a plane ticket. He had a car picking him up. And at the last minute he called and said, "I can't come.""

"I was in Pioneer Square - I went to see some band, I don't know if it was the the Melvins. Kurt was there - I think Kurt was by himself and I was by myself. I went over to tell him how much I loved Bleach. He was very quiet and subdued. He said, "Thanks - that means a lot coming from you. Consider yourself our biggest influence.""

"And like I said I love Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, the lyrics are so deep--stuff like "The animals I've trapped have now become my pets"."

"He's your archetypal small guy - wiry, defiantly working class and fiery."

"Kurt's wounds were so deep that when the music floated to the surface after being filtered through his soul, it was incorporeal."

"...With Kurt Cobain you felt you were connecting to the real person, not to a perception of who he was - you were not connecting to an image or a manufactured cut-out."

"You know, I always thought I'd go first. I don't know why I thought that, it just seemed like I would. I mean, I didn't know him on a daily basis - far from it. But, in a way, I don't even feel right being here without him. It's so difficult to really believe he's gone. I still talk about him like he's still here, you know. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make any sense."

"We came offstage and were about to go on for the encore, and I think the bass player of Tad came in and told us [about Cobain's death]. He just kind of barged in and was emotional, and started talking about the reports that they had found Kurt but they weren't sure if it was him or not, but it was. We all got very emotional; it was very surreal. We weren't home; we weren't around any people we knew. I guess, in a sense, we could all take solace in the fact that — especially Soundgarden — that we were born from this idea that we played kind of dark, moody music. Our identity … kind of was a band that created a soundtrack for that type of weird, awful scenario."

"I didn't really know Kurt that well, but there was a guy I always admired. We didn't spent much time together, but the few times we did spend together, you know, were times I'll always remember. You know, he was a really sweet guy, and a really genuine soul, you know, and an incredibly talented artist."

"He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me."

"Kurt Cobain, we was good friends Ozzy Osbourne too."

"Everything I love the most get taken away. My momma and music is next. And if that happens before I turn 28. Then I'm going out with Kurt Cobain."

"I think I'm Jimi Hendrix, I think I'm Kurt Cobain I think I'm John Lennon, gone insane Someone take this gun, before I blow out my brains (BANG)."

"And KDC you were much too young And you changed my life But I draw the line at suicide. Here's to Life!"

"Bloody ink on my pen spelled suicide Kurt Cobain even died cause you scrutinize"

"I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra died And the night Jeff Buckley died And the night Kurt Cobain died And the night John Lennon died."

"You can hear them crying down the lane From Portland to Maryland From Greece to Spain."

"A transvestite in trouble, gee We can make a double CD People want to see blood, To see 'em messed up like a Kurt Cobain."

"I'll spend my days with J.F.K., Marvin Gaye, Martha Raye, and Lawrence Welk, And Kurt Cobain, Kojak, Mark Twain and Jimi Hendrix's poltergeist."

"And going for the clincher, a girl cries out in vain How Jesus lived 6 years longer than Kurt Cobain And Jesus' hair was longer, and Jesus' arms were stonger And Jesus's eyes were bluer, and Jesus' thoughts were truer."

"Thanks to Elvis and Kurt Cobain The world will never be the same."