Re-Noted: Kurt Cobain's Spiral Notebooks

"Don't read my diary...please read my diary. Look through my things and figure me out."

Apr 29, 2024

You wouldn’t know it from looking at me, but deep down inside, I’m still a punk-rock kid from the 90s. Spending time with Kurt Cobain’s (1967-1994) notebooks for this post put me back in touch with that teenage-self. The nihilism! The angst! The plaid!

The inside story of how Cobain's journals went public | EW.com — Cobain, writing notes

Cobain tapped into a generation’s sense of alienation, anger, and disillusionment and left us with music that still feels vital. He also left behind over two-dozen spiral notebooks, filled with diary-like entries, lists of his favorite bands, lyric drafts, and cartoon strips. He was a true creative: a talented artist, musician, and poet.

Much like his lyrics, Kurt’s notes are full of contradictions. For example:

Don’t read my diary when I’m gone
Ok, I’m going to work now, when you wake up this morning, please read my diary. Look through my things, and figure me out.

I don’t think we’ll “figure him out,” but I do think Kurt’s notes invite a deeper appreciation for the sensitive, angry, idealistic, apathetic, riotous rock star that defined the 90s for so many of us.

Cobain’s Diary

There are two things you should know about Kurt Cobain. First, he suffered from a debilitating, incurable stomach condition. Throughout his short life, he had “10 upper and lower gastrointestinal procedures.”1 Second, when Kurt was 8, his parents divorced, which set off a cascade of emotional pain for him.

In terms of his stomach condition, eating caused Kurt excruciating pain.2 He chronicles some of this agony in his lyrics to “Mexican Seafood.” In his journal, he joked,

Please Lord, fuck hit records, just let me have my very own unexplainable rare stomach disease named after me.

Most powerful, I think, he illustrated the pain, as in this sketch of a demon tearing open a stomach and intestines:

In one of his journal entries, Kurt explains that his drug addiction was at least partially related to his stomach condition. He writes,

[I] decided to use heroine on a daily basis because of an ongoing stomach ailment that I had been suffering from for the past five years…3

Another crucial aspect of Kurt’s biography was his parents’ divorce. By all accounts, Kurt was a very sensitive kid. In his diary, he recounts overhearing his mother on the phone complaining, “I don’t know what to do with him…”4 He spent his childhood passed around different relatives’ homes. He felt manipulated by his mother and abandoned by his father.

This pain was also motivating. On another page he writes:

Thanks to: un-encouraging parents everywhere for giving their children the will to show them up…5

If you’d like to learn more about Kurt Cobain’s life, I highly recommend the documentary, Montage of Heck. It includes home videos and fascinating interviews with his parents—some of which are included in this brief trailer:

Kurt didn’t use his diary to record daily events, rather, he used it as “a therapeutic obsessive/compulsive device wherein he let loose his innermost thoughts.”6 He filled pages with poetry that would re-surface as lyrics, meditations on his childhood, and screeds against bigotry and corporate greed.

Kurt wasn't the type of note-taker to keep separate notebooks for separate purposes. It all just blended together, so let’s take a look at the variety of content Kurt included in his spiral notebooks.

Cobain’s Lists

Michael Azerrad, who consulted with Cobain to write Come as you Are: The Story of Nirvana, tells us that Kurt was misunderstood. He wasn’t “just a guileless junkie...He totally knew what he was doing."7 Cobain was ambitious, and he set out to be successful (not to be confused with being famous). Music became his life, and he put everything he had into Nirvana.

As part of this preparation, he made lists. At first, he lists his favorite bands:

And then, as Nirvana started to form, Cobain made to-do lists. First and foremost, they needed to

Send some fucking demo tapes…

But they also needed to put together a press kit, find a place to practice, and gather contacts.

Once they began to tour, Kurt drew up a new list meant to enforce order:

Cobain’s guitar

Kurt couldn’t find the perfect guitar to buy, so he designed it. He filled notebook pages with sketches like these:

Finally, he landed on a solution: he would combine his two favorite guitars—the Jaguar and the Mustang. He took photographs of each, pasted them together, and formed the “Jagstang.”

Cobain explained,

Ever since I started playing, I’ve always liked certain things about certain guitars but could never find the perfect mix of everything I was looking for. The Jag-stang is the closest thing I know.

If you’re so inclined, Fender still sells Jag-stangs. And here is Kurt, playing his “aqua blue” Jag-stang:

30 Tahun Album 'Nevermind' Fender Rilis Ulang Fender Jag-Stang Kurt Cobain - Boleh Music

Cobain’s Lyrics

Kurt generally composed melodies before lyrics. Then, he would find scraps of poetry scattered throughout his notebooks. In an interview, he explains

...the reason why most of my lyrics don’t connect is that they’re all pieces of my poetry. I’ve used lines from all of these different poems—and in the first place none of the poems are about anything…8

I love the following page, where Kurt works out some of the lyrics for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” On the top right, he’s scribbled an address. He crosses-out and reworks lines. He circles keywords and phrases and works through a series of opposites (“a mulato, an albino”) and paradoxes (“I know I hope to buy the truth”).

Smells Like Teen Spirit Lyrics, Cobain’s *Journals*

After you’ve read through this draft, watch Nirvana’s epic music video. It’s a fever-dream of a high school pep-rally gone wrong.

And, finally, one last list—this time of materials needed for the above music video:

Needed for the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video

I hope Cobain’s creativity has inspired you!

Notes on Cobain’s Notes

Just write: Kurt wasn’t very concerned with organizing his notebooks. I like a well-organized note-book as much as anyone else, but sometimes you just need to get ideas on the page. The key, of course, is to read your notes back so as not to lose material.

Lists: when he was creating poetry, Cobain unleashed his pen on the page without order. But, when he was trying to organize his band, he turned to lists. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: different projects require different organizational strategies.

Make copies of your notes: it’s frustrating to read, but Kurt lost several of his notebooks.

I have had 4 four notebooks filled with two years worth of poetry and personal writing and ~~thoughts~~ lyrics stolen from me at separate times5

We can only wonder what treasures they contained. Along the same lines, Kurt also drafted letters in his notebooks, so we still have copies of them even if many of the final versions have disappeared.

An Announcement:

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