Blank on Blank is a PBS series which cleverly animates obscure and lost interviews with cultural and musical icons, and their last one features Kurt Cobain. This is an interview he did with Jon Savage on July 22nd 1993, so just a few months before his death.
The animated video is just an excerpt of a longer interview, but it is very captivating. I had never really heard Cobain speak, just mostly read written interviews and he is quite articulate, clear and smart. He reveals his most intimate problems in high school, his search for his Irish ancestors, and his sexual confusion – he couldn’t find any male friends and was hanging out with a lot with girls, declaring ‘I even thought that I was gay. I thought that might be the solution to my problem’. He also talks about his realization that Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith had sexist lyrics, and about his constant stomach and back pain nourishing his profound anger, but, astonishingly, he sounds nothing like a depressed guy, sounding even optimistic, and adding that his mental state had improved at 100% since the birth of his daughter. Really difficult to understand that he was dead 9 months later in the circumstances that we all know. Almost 20 years after his tragic death, Cobain continues to fascinates us, and the animation is quite well-done.
The excellent PBS series Blank on Blank has previously featured lost interviews with Jim Morrison, James Brown, the Beastie Boys, and many other ones.