Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain

by Danny Goldberg

There are not that many rock-and-roll chords. Every lyricist has access to the same dictionary. Everyone can listen to the same canon. Some elements of the craftsmanship of pop songwriting can be taught, but not the art of getting listeners in touch with their deepest feelings in an instantly memorable way. Some maintain that mass success in rock and roll is mostly a matter of luck, timing, marketing, and intensity of ambition. However, when it comes to Kurt, I think it has more to do with the way Sonny Rollins described the music of John Coltrane in the documentary Chasing Trane: “To play at that level you have to be touched by—whatever.” For my generation the great rock savant was Bob Dylan. Bob Johnston, the producer of the albums Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, said of Dylan, “God didn’t touch him on the shoulder, he kicked him in the ass. There was nothing he could do about it. He’s got the holy spirit on him. You can look at him and tell that.”