Burntout.com - A website for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana

Tom Goom - And I swear that I don't have a gun

Kurt has now been gone for four years and since that soul-destroying day in early April 1994 the world has mourned the loss of an amazingly talented guy. Only recently have people began to question the nature of Kurt's death. Suicide seemed the only answer, the obvious way for a rock star to go a dramatic and powerful end to an amazing yet disturbed life!

We are relatively new to the Nirvana scene only really catching onto this phenomenon in the late part of 1993 when we got our first "hit" off Nevermind. The rawness and power combined with arse kicking lyrics and a sound that just built the teenage angst inside. We instantly saw Smells like Teen Spirit as the head banging, air guitar playing, soul rocking, God of a song that it is and then the obsession started! Bleach, In Utero, Incesticide, Unplugged in New York, a few Bootlegs (we apologise for this), posters, T-shirts, neck chains, books, magazines, videos, everything and anything that we could lay our hands on that was remotely connected to Nirvana. We made countless compilation albums, played their music on the guitar and even did some particularly bad drawings of them, which we stuck on our walls. Just as the buzz kicked in Kurt died. It was in the afternoon of that fateful April day that I turned on the news that the headline came up that Kurt Cobain had supposedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
It was only later that the details and mysteries behind Kurt's death became clear. The story runs that he had had a major heroine session, and had been booked in to an institution for detoxification. He left the clinic on March 8th under his own power and flew back to Seattle. A month later, on April 8th Kurt's body found was in the greenhouse of his Seattle home by the electrician. Kurt had been dead for three days.
Kurt's friends Dillon and Tom had looked for him the day he had died and although Dillon knew of the existence of the greenhouse and had been instructed to look there by Courtney he failed to check it. Later he denied that he even knew that the greenhouse existed, throwing his name into suspicion, as he had also been the person that had been with Kurt when he bought the gun for "house protection".
Courtney had claimed that there had also been earlier suicide attempts and suicide notes although she claimed that she burnt the letters. Her name was also thrown into suspicion by the fact the days before Kurt's death he had said that he was going to write her out of his will and that she stood to gain nothing if he died. He never got to change his will, leaving her his fortune and suggestions have been made that Courtney had a hand in his death. Suicide is far from a clear verdict, he had 5.6 mg of heroine per pint of his blood, five times the amount required to kill someone and most likely leaving him in a condition where he would have been unable to fire the gun. Also scientists have speculated as to whether he could have fired the gun anyway, the entrance and exit wounds and the ballistic evidence suggest that the gun was fired further away from his face than he would have been capable to reach with his hands. The only other option would have been to fire it with his feet but this would have been impossible, not only because of the influence of the drugs but most importantly because he was wearing trainers when he died. There was also evidence of a mystery visitor the night Kurt died, so what really happened is a mystery.
People are willing to believe that this was indeed a suicide, it made a powerful "rock and roll" end to a rock stars life but many have questioned this conclusion that was at first made with such certainty.
The fact of the matter is Kurt died, regardless of how, and this took some time to come to terms with. We kept hoping that he had faked it and gone into hiding somewhere, just disappeared to get him self together before an incredible comeback, but in time this dream faded and we began to come to terms with the massive loss.
We don't really know what to believe concerning Kurt's death but that it was just a waste of a life that had so much more to give to the world, although it was clear that he was receiving nothing in return. Kurt said in the 'suicide' note, " The worst crime that I could think of would be to pull people off by faking it, pretending as if I'm having one hundred per cent fun"
He mentioned repeatedly in the note that he wasn't enjoying his performances but instead was feeling the pressure of expectant and admiring people, and so began to turn more and more to drugs as a solution.
The only way to numb the pain is to continue appreciating what Kurt and Nirvana achieved. By playing their music so loud that our ears bleed and the neighbours complain, by singing along with so much passion and feeling that our throats hurt and our voices go harsh, and by head banging so hard and fast that the room spins and our minds buzz.
To us the memory of Kurt and Nirvana hasn't died in that Seattle greenhouse but will continue to live on until we are old bastards sucking food through a straw. Oh well whatever Nevermind!