There’s a series of photos of Kurt Cobain taken at the 1993 VMAs that are probably among the most famous – or maybe most defining or most iconic or most something – images of him.
It’s the way he looks in my imagination, and probably many other people’s imaginations too: the black and white horizontal stripes. The oversized red sunglasses propped up on top of his head functioning less like sunglasses and more like a hairband, holding back his long, dishevelled dirty blond hair. Wife Courtney Love is next to him, and in many of the photos he’s holding their daughter Frances, around one year old at the time.
Being a press-heavy event filled with celebrities, there were many, many photos taken that night. In some of them Kurt looks enamoured with his baby. In others he looks like a deer in headlights. In all of them he’s about seven months from taking his own life.
But there’s one shot in particular that stands out to me.
In it, Cobain is holding baby Frances awkwardly, balancing her on his knee as if he’s trying to shift from one baby hold to another. Frances, like a sack of potatoes that doesn’t want to be moved, extends one arm out to her right as if reaching for something out of frame, but her left hand reaches up and behind her, gently touching her father’s cheek.
To Kurt’s right is Peter Gabriel, watching the clumsy dad moment patiently, but not interested in helping. To Kurt’s left is Courtney Love, holding a baby bottle but not really paying attention to her child and husband, as if thinking about something else. Beside Love is Sinéad O’Connor, looking at Frances with a bemused smile.
I don’t know why, but I love that photo. The way the picture is framed, the way each character is looking in a different direction but none of them at each other, and with the baby at the centre of it all… it’s one of those modern pictures that looks like a renaissance painting.
In an interview, Sinéad O’Connor was once asked whether she remembered that evening. She said:
I do! I remember the very moment that photo was taken. I was standing at some point behind Kurt and Courtney. And I remember I felt a great sorrow for Kurt at the moment we were all standing there, for some reason, the moment that we were all standing there. I was feeling very sorry for him, and I couldn’t tell you why, but I thought, “oh my God. That’s a man that’s suffering.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The contrast between Cobain’s rusty growl and O’Connor’s fierce whisper. Each powerful in their own way.
2. “All Apologies” was always one of Nirvana’s more subdued songs, and with minimal instrumentation O’Connor strips it back even more. But somehow that minimalism makes it even more burning and intense.
3. It was the perfect Nirvana track for O’Connor to cover. She never made apologies for her opinions or actions, no matter how controversial they may have been. Her version was released almost a year to the day after the photo was taken.
Recommended listening activity:
Looking at an old photo of yourself and trying to remember what was going through your mind when it was taken.