Fall 1991. Junior year abroad. A song drifts from the student-union-turned-nightclub, ferocious and sugary. It’s the most fully satisfying song I’ve ever heard. When I buy the CD the next day, I can’t seem to take it off repeat. But this isn’t the song I’m writing about.
Spring 1992. I’ve made friends in England, and at a club called the Timepiece someone squeezes this song, which I’m not writing about, between the Fall and PJ Harvey. There’s a rush for the dancefloor–one I’m actually a part of, for a change–and for a second no-one knows how to move to it. When the chorus kicks in, it’s a little clearer. Limbs collide, hair mats.
Fall 1992 – Summer 1993. When I get back to the States, it’s a slow year for them, recording-wise. He and Courtney appear on the cover of Sassy; she’s kissing him and he’s smiling. Later on, she’s on the cover of Spin, full-bellied with their child. I graduate from college. In the summer, I travel to the far side of my home town to watch a movie about their first tour with Sonic Youth. They take the piss out of a certain loathed MTV personality, right to his face. It’s the same mocking-the-system-from-within which by now has become familiar…if not yet completely impotent.
Fall 1993. I move to a strange town to help keep my band alive. I work in a mall coffee shop, alarm clock radio faintly humming behind me. In Utero is released and, college radio station or no, it’s flatly staggering to hear a song called “Rape Me” in rotation.
Late Fall 1993. The album unfolds before me with each listen, and my pride as a fan swells even as half the songs are totally unnerving. I don’t even begin to think of them as an antidote to any of the bands that have come in their wake; instead, I convince myself that they’ll mature into something like R.E.M.’s reliability, all the savior tags stripping away with time, the buzz receding until eventually they’re dropping an amazing record every two or three years without all the fanfare. It’s a good and earnest wish; it’s what I would wish for myself.
New Year’s Eve 1993/4. I can’t say I know what’s coming. But they show a concert on MTV, and they open with “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.” It’s better than “Teen Spirit” maybe, but it’s like a firework in a milk bottle, all combustion, no release. Later they do “Bloom,” and it sounds like an old standard, like they could be the band I want them to be, but eventually he’s hopelessly spitting at a camera lens, leering and weak. I literally think to myself, just hang on a little bit longer.
April 1994. In the morning, the coffee shop radio doesn’t identify the body, but by the time I clock out, it does. I mentally lob the news of his suicide in with all the other bummers that have accumulated in the months since graduation. I can’t seem to quit smoking, either. I can’t seem to quit yelling at my girlfriend, either. On the drive home I’m choked with how selfish I’m being. Then I think well, it’s not like I ever met him… And so I flip between letting it matter too much and not enough. At home, I engage in my short-lived exercise regimen, alternating push-ups and sit-ups while that CD spins. The last song comes. I’ve never felt further from home. It’s a laugh that he’s apologizing, but I tremble anyway. I lay there and listen and try to stop what I’m doing.
