A Grunge Man Remembered Trivia Quiz

Answer: Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters is fronted by singer/guitarist Dave Grohl, who used to be the drummer for Nirvana. So Grohl is probably one of the few people in the world who truly knew Kurt and his situation. Grohl told a British newspaper, about "Let it Die", that it is not solely about Kurt and Courtney, but yes, mainly about them: "I've seen people lose it all to drugs... but the one that's most noted is Kurt.

There are a lot of people that I've been angry with in my life, but the one that's most noted is Courtney". Grohl also said that he's not surprised references to Kurt come up in his songs, even a decade and a half later, because it was such an important and influential time in his life.

The lyric that clearly makes the song about Courtney as well is "A simple man and his blushing bride, intravenous, intertwined".

Answer: Innocent

"Innocent" is from the 2002 album "Gravity". This song demonstrates, through the character of young Johnny, how young people, a generation that was too young to really experience or appreciate Kurt Cobain while he was alive, is still influenced by him and try to emulate him.

Answer: The Fall

"The Fall (Kurt's Blues)" appears on the Cher album "Not.Com.Mercial", which was written mostly in 1994, recorded in 1995, but not released until 2000. The release of the album was so delayed because it was considered to be "too personal for commercial purposes".

The song starts with lines "Never even knew you, but I heard your note today..." and ends with "I'm sorry you saw no choice, til death chilled you to the bone. My heart has run on empty since I heard the [sad] news. We're a heartless, Godless culture, we'd walk nowhere in your shoes. Well, the good news, if there's any, is that you ever lived at all. Our country kills its heroes, we just raise them for the fall."

Answer: R.E.M

Kurt Cobain and the members of R.E.M. were really only acquaintances, but they were fans of each other. Courtney Love gave Mike Mills of R.E.M. one of Kurt's guitars after he died, and Mills used it to record "Let Me In". The line "Mister fisher moved to a less peculiar ground, he gathered up his loved ones and he brought them all around" has confused people in the past, but it is about Kurt.

The part about "Mister fisher" refers to how Kurt called himself a "sad, little, unappreciative Pisces" in his suicide note, and "he gathered up his loved ones..." refers to how all his drug paraphernalia was found around his body.

Answer: The Day Seattle Died

"The Day Seattle Died" can be found on Cold's 2003 CD "Year of the Spider". While the lyrics describe Kurt's death, the song is also a tribute to the late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, who died of a heroin overdose in 2002. His body was discovered on April 19, but the coroner estimated his date of death to be April 5, the eighth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. That gave the Cold song its title, with April 5 being the day that Seattle rockers died, in two different years.

Answer: About a Boy

The title of this song is of course a tribute to the 1989 Nirvana song "About a Girl". "About a Boy" is on Patti Smith's 1996 album "Gone Again". Other than the title, there is nothing in the song's lyrics to overtly suggest that it is a song about Kurt, but it does imply that it is about a death: "From a chaos raging sweet, from the deep and dismal street. Toward another kind of peace, toward the great emptiness".

Answer: "Mighty KC" by For Squirrels

"Mighty KC" can be found on the 1995 album "Example" and it was the only single from it. The song did reasonably well, reaching number 15 on the American charts. All the other songs listed were about Kurt and his death (or at least mentioned it), but "Terrible" by Insane Clown Posse was not a tribute to Kurt.

It was more like a criticism, not to him directly, but to the response to his death: "The world was crying when Kurt went Ka-bang! When Eazy-E died though, it wasn't no thang. Rapper dies of AIDS, but you hardly mention it. Rocker blows his face off and becomes a legend.

Heroin, a shot gun and hero was made. Maybe I should do that [stuff] so I can get paid".

Answer: Stone Temple Pilots

The song appears on STP's 2001 album "Shangri-La Dee Da". The first verse of the song introduced a nameless girl, then the second verse started: "There was this boy, he played in a rock and roll band. And he wasn't half bad at saving the world. She said he could do no right, so he took his life." The song then continues later: "Now this girl, she got real famous.

She made lots of money, and some of his too."

Answer: Immortality

It was in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times" in November 1994 in which Vedder talked about this song. He said that it was not directly about Kurt, but that he can see how some of the lyrics can be read into and interpreted as applying to Kurt, and that will maybe "help you understand the pressures on someone who is on a parallel train".

The lines in the song that most people associate with Kurt are "artificial tear, vessel stabbed, next up" (referring to a filled syringe), "some die just to live", and "cigar box on the floor", because there was a cigar box found on the floor next to Kurt's body.

Answer: The Needle and the Damage Done

The song was written about heroin use in general, and many friends that Young saw go down that road. It first appeared on the 1972 album "Harvest". Neil Young did write another song that was in memory of Kurt, called "Sleeps With Angels", which was on a 1994 album of the same name. Neil Young was a big fan of Kurt's and upon his death was quoted as saying "He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me." The respect must have been mutual, because Kurt quoted Young in his suicide note: "It's better to burn out than to fade away".