Free 27: Kurt Cobain by Chris Salewicz Page A

‘bohemian’ lifestyle of the parents, they seemed to arrive and leave the house as though through a revolving door.
    Kurt’s relationship with Don, his own father, remained largely unresolved. That spring of 1993, Kurt wrote a letter to Don which he never sent. It concluded: ‘I’ve never taken sides with you or my mother because while I was growing up, I had equal contempt for you both.’
    The huge success of Nirvana was played out against the background of assorted vicious territorial wars in what was now former Yugoslavia. For Krist Novoselic, with his Croatian blood, this must have been deeply troubling. On 9 April 1993, Nirvana played at a benefit for Bosnian rape victims at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They showcased eight new songs, all of which would be on
In Utero
. Also on the bill were L7, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and the Breeders.
    Meanwhile, waiting in the wings was the release of
In Utero
. Despite having wanted Steve Albini to produce the record, Kurt now thought the sound was a little too raw. Scott Litt, who had produced four REM albums, including 1992’s massive breakthrough
Automatic for the People
, was brought in to make ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ and ‘All Apologies’, both obvious singles, more radio-friendly. Acting in archetypal punk situationist manner, Kurt threatened to release the original Albini mix album as
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
. A month after this, he said he would release the remixed record, with the title
Verse, Chorus, Verse
.
    On a more domestic level, on Sunday, 2 May 1993, police and an ambulance were called to Kurt and Courtney’s rented Seattle house, following reports of a drug overdose on the premises. Kurt had come home smacked up, and when challenged by Courtney, he had retreated to a locked bedroom.
    Kurt had taken to disappearing off into Seattle’s druggy hinterlands, specifically Aurora Avenue, with its drug connections, hookers and seedy motels: Kurt loved to check into the Marco Polo Inn, where he would hole up doing heroin. ‘There were many overdoses and near-death situations, as many as a dozen during 1993 alone,’ wrote Charles R. Cross. [44]
    Yet on the part of Courtney, there were serious and strenuous efforts being made in the spring and summer of 1993 to get clean. She was attending Narcotics Anonymous, drinking only fruit juice, and taking advice from a psychic. Later, however, there would be relapses. Yet her husband was increasingly withdrawn, in a state of acute depression. The junkie’s world is one of secrecy and sneakiness, not exactly conducive to positive character development, and one in which addicts are prone to fits of status anxiety and oneupmanship. It was during those months that Kurt declared he was going to get into crack, a drug neither he nor Courtney had previously abused.
    On 1 June 1993, Courtney staged – in the jargon of dependency therapy – an ‘intervention’ at the house, in which friends would express their concern, urge Kurt to sort himself out, and offer assistance to do this. His friend Nils Bernstein was there, as well as his mother Wendy and Krist. ‘You could see in Kurt’s face that he was thinking, “Nothing in your life relates to anything in my life,”’ remembered Nils. In front of them, on the wall with a red marker, Kurt scrawled, ‘None of you will ever know my true intent’. [45]
    A month later, on 1 July, Hole played one of their first shows in months, at the Off Ramp in Seattle. Kurt was there, very evidently off his head on something – he had to be helped to walk. Brian Willis of the
NME
went back to the house with Courtney. Kurt – who by now seemed to have come down from his drug intake – was at home. However he kept out of the way as Courtney played Willis
In Utero
– the first time a member of the press had heard the record.
    As dawn broke Kurt brought them hot chocolate and