Kurt Cobain did not die a poetic death, says Cassie Workman. The idolised musician’s suicide in 1994 fed into the myth of the 27 club, the sad litany of rock stars from Hendrix to Winehouse who have died at that age, but there is no glamour to be found there.
Rather, Workman finds a sense of sorrow, not only for an artist whose music she adored but also for a fellow outsider. She is not alone in that. Cobain had a special appeal to the young and disaffected in an age of cynicism. They saw in him a kindred spirit, a sensitive soul who could rise above the everyday with a hard-won romanticism. Workman describes seeing one of them paying their respects in Memorial Park in Aberdeen, Washington state. Neither speaks because each already understands what the other is thinking.
