APRIL 8th - Burn Out or Fade Away? It is Better to Be.

On this day in 1994, Nirvana lead singer, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his home outside Seattle, Washington. Injection marks in his arms, a 20-gauge between his knees, and a fatal wound to his head. Normally, I would stay away from such a heavy event, but he’s been on my mind recently. Maybe it’s the new documentary coming out about him, or the fact that I recently re-discovered Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album, or friends discussing him on Facebook, or the deep YouTube dive I did into the Teen React YouTube channel, which incidentally completely fascinated me and also made me feel decidedly ancient, in which today’s teens talked about Nirvana:



Now, if you didn’t get sucked in by that black hole of YouTube specialness, I shall continue. There are far better authorities on Kurt Cobain and Nirvana than me, and though I certainly appreciated his music and artistry, I was never the biggest Nirvana fan. So I won’t add my uninformed two cents about musical influence and legacy and all that stuff. I was only 11 years-old when Kurt Cobain died, and all I really remember was thinking that if my life ever got so bad that I wanted to commit suicide, I would just take off to Mexico. This was also my plan of action for if a significant amount of jail time seemed inevitable. I’m not sure what I thought Mexico was, but, needless to say, this was before I knew the intricacies of how debilitating depression, anxiety, and mental illness could be. But again, there are people better qualified to discuss these issues.

I’m more concerned with the idea Cobain referenced in his suicide note--the Neil Young sentiment that it is “better to burn out than to fade away.” It is startling to me how many great musicians “burned out.” And I’m not using “burn out” in the sense of an overdose or suicide or a fatal shooting. I’m using it in the more general sense of person dying before his/her time. (Note: Tupac probably is exempt from this discussion because he wrote a shitton of music to be released after his death which he always figured was coming early). I guess artists and people of creative endeavors are most likely to benefit from this axiom. Though athletes can travel down a similar path. If you put one breathtakingly great work of art out and then perish (or even retreat into seclusion) a shroud of legend usually descends.

It is human nature to be a bit fascinated with death. It is the unknown, and humans like to know. Artists get romanticized by dying young. I’m guilty of it. Jeff Buckley may be my favorite musical artist and he drowned in a river at 30 years old with only one studio album to his name. The “what-if” of him fascinates me. All possibility. Cobain and Nirvana had three albums and were successful in changing the landscape of rock music and influencing a myriad of bands that came after. So it’s not like Cobain’s suicide is the only reason he and the band are still viewed with reverence. They did enough before their demise to cement their status. But a death, especially of a young person, has a way of catapulting an artist. It opens up endless possibilities. How long would Nirvana have stayed together? What would Kurt be doing as he matured as artist? And the answers to these are colored by the brilliance of the work that does exist. The truth is, like any artist, Cobain probably would have made missteps and mistakes as well as putting out some truly great music. But the mystery that captures the imagination would have been gone. So is it really better to burn out than fade away?

Perhaps it is if image is all that you are concerned with. Many artists that die before their time grow bigger because of the mystery of what if. But it is that same mystery that makes their demise a tragedy. Who knows what we missed out on? Nobody wants to “fade away.” But picking “burning out” as the better option is to focus solely on image and is to fail to recognize the rest of the human experience. It is easy to forget that artists are people too. They are not here solely to create art. They are also here to love, to laugh, to cry, to get pissed off when a lover doesn’t call back or to mutter ‘fucktsick!’ when they stub their toe on the coffee table. They are here to live. And since death is unknown, to live is an infinitely precious gift. Picking “burn out” loses solely on the fact that it devalues that gift. But…

Sorry. I’m almost done. I also don’t take “fade away” as a literal choice. Not for Kurt Cobain. Artists have faded away before. I couldn’t tell you what Night Ranger is up to now despite the awesomeness that is "Sister Christian," but Night Ranger is no Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain would not have faded away. There would not have been a VH-1 Where Are They Now about him, unless he went all J.D. Salinger. Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen. They did not fade away. They are no longer at the height of their powers, but that is to be expected. They are still capable of putting out music that inspires and uplifts and influences. And that is my ultimate reason for wishing Kurt Cobain (and Jeff Buckley and Otis Redding and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix) would have stuck around. Their status wouldn’t be as mysterious, but things that exist (excluding evil) are better than things that do not. Is it better to burn out or to fade away?

It is better to be. To Exist.



This day has been Marked.