The recently discovered journals of grunge god Kurt Cobain are a sad, rambling screed extolling drugs, damning fame and professing his love for wife Courtney Love.
Cobain, the tormented leader of Nirvana, blew his brains out in his Seattle home in 1994, shocking his millions of fans.
The remarkable journal entries – excerpted in the current issue of Newsweek – will be published next month by Riverhead Press. While the spelling and grammar are slipshod, they provide unique insight into an American original. In a letter to ex-gal pal Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill, written after the success of Nirvana’s breakthrough album “Nevermind,” Cobain confessed his drug problem.
“As you may have guessed by now I’ve been taking to a lot of drugs lately. It might be the time for the Betty Ford Clinic . . . to save me from abusing my anemic, rodent-like body any longer,” he wrote. Cobain married Love in February 1992 as his heroin addiction steadily worsened. At a rehab center, he wrote an open letter to Nirvana’s fans – but never made it public.
“Oh Pleez [sic] GAWD I can’t handle the success! And I feel so incredible guilty!” he wrote.
By the winter of 1994, the clock was clearly ticking on Cobain’s tragic life. He barely survived a heroin overdose and was tormented by his addiction. In his suicide note, Cobain wrote his wife and daughter: “I don’t know where I’m going. I just can’t be here anymore.”