Courtney Love's anguished words at a vigil held for her late husband Kurt Cobain will play out on British TV on Saturday for the first time, to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.
Fan footage from the gathering, in the Nirvana frontman’s hometown of Seattle two days after his death in April 1994, shows more than 3,000 people gathered, with many weeping and holding candles. Courtney’s tearful voice is played out over loudspeakers as she reads out sections of Kurt’s words from his suicide note - at one point wailing: “Why didn’t you just stay?”
In the recorded message, she tells the crowd: “He left a note, it’s more like a letter to the f***ing editor. I don’t know what happened - he always said he was gonna outlive everybody and be a hundred and twenty.”
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READ MORE: Most haunting scenes in new Kurt Cobain doc - Nirvana star's final moments and Courtney Love's grief
Kurt writes: “I haven’t felt the excitement of listening to, as well as creating music, along with really writing something, for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things.”
Courtney cries: “Well, Kurt, so f***ing what? Then don’t be a rock star you a**hole.” In words seemingly addressed to the fans, he continues: “I can’t fool you, any one of you, it simply isn’t fair to you or to me. The worst crime I could think of would be to put people off by faking it, pretending as if I’m having 100% fun.”
But Courtney points out: “No Kurt, the worst crime I can think of is for you to just continue being a rock star when you f***ing hate it. Just f***ing stop.” In the note he says he’s struggled with life since the age of seven and quotes the famous Neil Young lyric, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
But his grieving wife tells the crowd: “Don’t remember this because it’s a f***ing lie. “I’m laying in our bed, and I’m really sorry. And I feel the same way you do. I’m really sorry you guys. I don’t know what I could have done.”
The film is an account of the days that surrounded that tragedy when Cobain took his own life while Nirvana were the biggest band in the world. It uses only archive footage, most of which is previously unseen on UK television, to create a picture of the events that unfolded as they happened.
Director and producer John Osborne told the Mirror : “Footage from those who were there, such as local news crews and fans in Seattle, give the film a raw immediacy, like breaking news. I hope viewers get a better understanding of this seismic story as they watch it unfold. But most of all, I hope they get a sense of just how much Kurt Cobain was loved.”
The film contains a news interview with electrician Gary Smith, who found Cobain’s body at the Seattle home he shared with Courtney and their toddler daughter Frances, who weren’t there at the time.
Smith was installing a security system and explains how he spotted Cobain’s lifeless form through window. “I noticed something on the floor and I thought it was a mannequin. So I looked a little closer and I thought ‘Jesus that’s a person’. I could see blood and a weapon lying on his chest.”
He said he’d seen the suicide note and it ended with the words, “I love you, I love you.” Kurt, who died aged just 27, was a huge rock star but also a heroin addict who had struggled to come to terms with the fame that followed the band’s global success.
Just a few weeks before he died he had been rushed to hospital for a stomach pump after swallowing a near-fatal quantity of drugs and alcohol. Before he was found dead he had checked into rehab in Los Angeles but it was discovered he’d already bought a shotgun along with ammunition. He escaped from the rehab centre after 48 hours and returned to Seattle but friends and family were unable to find him.
Fans were divided in their response to his death. While some were filmed calling him “selfish” for leaving behind his wife and daughter, others couldn’t understand why he didn’t just stop being a rock star rather than take his own life.
And in a radio phone-in, another Nirvana fan questions why anyone would be shocked by his suicide. “He’s been telegraphing that for a long time. I don’t understand why his fans would be so surprised.” The singer’s second cousin, Bev Cobain, is a trained nurse who specialises in mental health and addiction issues. In a filmed interview from 1994 she tells of her heartbreak at not being able to help Kurt.
“I feel a particular loss because I’m in the addiction business,” she says on camera. “He was really having a hard time. I sent him many telegrams trying to reach him, to see if I could reach my hand out to him. It feels particularly awful to me to be good at what I do and to help other people all the time and not to be able to help somebody I love.”
In his last ever TV interview, shown in the BBC documentary, Kurt says poignantly that he is excited about “my baby, my marriage” and insists: “I was a lot more negative and angry a few years ago. Once you fall in love it’s different. Now that I’ve found that, the world seems a lot better.”
Nirvana released three full-length albums in their lifetime and became standard bearers for the grunge movement in the early Nineties. The band - Kurt Cobain, Kris Novoselic and Dave Grohl - broke up after the death of Cobain aged 27. Their album Nevermind is considered a classic LP by fans and critics and has sales of over 30 million copies globally.
In the UK two of their compilation albums released after Cobain’s death went to number one. Cobain’s wife Courtney Love had success with her own band Hole.
Moments That Shook Music: Kurt Cobain airs on BBC2 at 9.25pm
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