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| Photo by israel palacio on Unsplash |
Her Take:
Prepare yourself, this one might get a little heavy.
On April 5th, 1994, I was a little more than seven months pregnant with my oldest son and, as I remember it, even though memory can be flawed, my ex had taken me to visit his parents who lived in a small town about an hour away from us. Google tells me that April 5th, 1994 was a Friday, so that doesn’t seem like a perfect day for a drive but his parents were retired, I worked weekends in retail, and my ex was frequently unemployed so my version of history seems plausible.
At any rate, we spent the day, as you could back then, disconnected from what was happening in the world. With no constant stream of news on a cell phone (I promise I’m not playing the nostalgia card here) we knew less at any given moment, and we waited for the TV, or the newspaper, or someone we knew to tell us what happened, mostly after it was long over.
Not to say that I remember having a perfectly lovely day before I saw the nightly news, I was with my ex after all, but I remember it being as peaceful as a day could have been for us.
Cut to: back in our tiny apartment later that night, I turn on MTV (yes, that MTV) and Kurt Loder gives me this news. Earlier that week Nirvana had announced that they were breaking up and Kurt Cobain was heading to rehab. I would be lying if I told you right now that I remember hearing that, though I imagine I must have, because MTV was on in my house around the clock.
I want to believe, though, that I had some hope. Hope that Kurt would come out of treatment better, stronger, more able to make music and work with the band. Maybe I imagined the band would reconcile then, keep making music, and tour until I was old - maybe as old as 40 if you can picture that - and we’d all get new music from Nirvana forever. Or maybe I decided he should be a solo act. To bring the enormity of his presence to the world without being held back by bandmates that caused him so much grief. To give us, well, me anyway, what we wanted which was just Kurt, all Kurt. Bigger than life in his grandpa sweater and dirty looking hair.
But now, that day, out of nowhere, Kurt was gone.
I was Today-Years-Old when I realized how much Kurt Cobain meant to me, and writing this is suddenly so hard. There’s a part of me that’s driven by the urge to explain why I’m hurting right now, over-explain really. As if the fact that someone passed from this earth 25 years ago, someone I didn’t know, who I only saw on MTV, isn’t enough to justify my sombre mood. As if I should beg you for permission to be sad right now or I should brace for a fight where I shout in your face about how my generation WAS Nirvana. We OWED Nirvana for being the first of our generation to break through. But I won’t do that.
My grief is my grief, and I get to own it as I choose.
Instead, I’ll end this by saying that Nirvana spoke to some of us in a mystical and all encompassing way. If you didn’t like them, that’s ok too, your soul wasn’t searching for them and you didn’t need them. I get that. But I needed them, I still do, and the day that Kurt Cobain took his life is a day I’ll never forget.
That’s a rough note to end on, so how about some music to soothe our souls?
His Take:
Back in the ‘80’s we had some awesome girl bands. The Bangles, Bananarama, Vixen, the Go-Gos. But there was only one group that stole my heart, and that was…..Heart. In 1985 they made a major comeback, but for some of us, this was the first we’d seen of them. I can remember the exact moment that I fell in love with them, It was the first time I saw the video for These Dreams. And I’ll be honest, it was all Nancy Wilson. Although I thought Ann was cute, I had a major crush on Nancy. I remember buying the cassette tape of their album, Heart. I had a white, neon purple and green Walkman (why did everything in the 80’s have to be at least three colors and one of them always had to be neon?) and I would listen to the tape every day on the bus to and from school. I never got tired of it, I never wanted to listen to the radio, I was totally content and happy listening to Heart. The tape could’ve gotten stuck in their for all I know, I never wanted to take it out. Let me take that back. Sometimes I would put it in my boom box and fall asleep to it. Eventually I wore the tape out, but in those days, when a tape stopped selling, Shopko didn’t have it anymore, and there was no ebay, and I knew my chances of getting another tape were slim and none. I taped some of their songs off the radio, but it was a far cry from the real thing. And now let’s jump ahead in time a couple of years…
Dateline 1992-1995, I’m not sure of the specific year. The first CD I ever bought was, you guessed it..Hear. I spent a lot of time listening to that CD. It went with me basically everywhere. Then, a decade of so later, it was one of the first albums that I bought on Itunes. I’m sure I’ll buy it on a microchip that gets injected into my ear in 15 years when that becomes available.
A couple years ago I was playing around on my phone and I came across Hearts official website. Although, something was really wrong. It wasn’t Ann & Nancy WIlson. It had Ann Wilson and some other band members. After a quick google search I had learned the thing I never wanted to happen, happened. The band had broken up. Long story short, Ann’s husband had beat up Nancy’s twin sons, who were 16 at the time. Now, there’s a lot of reasons bands break up, but having an uncle beat the hell out of his two nephews is one of your better reasons. Aside from an Ike & Tina Turner situation, it’s probably the second best reason. But I was totally heart-broken. I was more upset than I thought I would be. Worst of all, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to there music. The one album I had on constantly in the background for the most of my life,was something I just couldn’t take. It was like part of MY family broke up.
Just last week, I was sitting in the car, bored out of my mind while my wife ran into the grocery store quick to pick up something. I got out my phone, opened up Youtube and typed in “Heart These Dreams”, the video popped up and I started watching it. But something else popped up under the little screen. It was one of those “This band is coming to a venue near you!” ads. I laughed to myself and thought that whoever put that ad there is really out of date. Out of boredom and curiosity, I tapped the ad and it took me to a place where I could buy tickets to see Heart live on July 11th of this year. Turns out the band got back together!!!! I was super excited. Every since then, I’ve had the album playing in the background almost all the time.
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