The Man Who Sold the World

As I was at the Associated today trying to decide whether or not to buy a box of cereal, Nirvana’s version of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” came on the radio. I flashed back to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York, Kurt Cobain in his cardigan sweater singing his heart out. I wondered what he’d think about his song playing at an Associated in Greenpoint at five something on a Wednesday in mid-November 2010 as tired people coming home from work shopped*. I thought about how sad it was that we should be hearing him sing about someone dying alone, a long, long time ago. I thought about how, as I didn’t know him personally, my feelings about Kurt Cobain were pretty obviously tied up in my own getting older, in the ever-increasing distance from that Friday afternoon in 1994 when I’d learned of his suicide. A long, long time ago, indeed. 

* Specifically: Whether it’s a function of society being edgier now than it was in 1994, or of Nirvana’s music not having been all that esoteric to begin with.