Song 513: This week on the playlist you can hear Come As You Are by Nirvana, written by Kurt Cobain, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When Nirvana's second album Nevermind showed up at the end of the summer in 1991, it got a lot of attention, and rightly so, I thought. I particularly liked the sound of this follow-up single (and I also really enjoy the video the band did for the hit, which I saw for the first time today). I had recently decided to feature a Nirvana track in this stretch as I got close to finishing the second edition of my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, having finally had the time to complete the rewrite. The paperback focuses on my step-by-step understanding of psychiatric disorders, and about 2/3 of the way along that journey, the unfolding tragedy of Mr. Cobain's bipolar trauma, which led him to commit suicide, played a major role in putting together the puzzle for me. At the time that he killed himself, I had no comprehension, or respect, for the suffering that motivated him to pull the trigger, but a few years after, The Sock Drawer Moment (chapter 14) happened, and the necessary pieces fell into place. As I mention in the following chapter, I later said to a psychiatrist that Kurt sacrificed his life for the sake of his art, and the doctor replied, “Yes, he did!” I now have a lot more regard for the man than I did when he ended his life, and while it does sound ironic to hear him sing I don't have a gun, I certainly can venerate him for turning an old enemy into a friend, as the lyrics of this cut picture him doing.
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