News The Hole lyrics Courtney Love changed after the death of Kurt Cobain
The death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain shook the world. The Nirvana leader was the voice of his generation, an artist who rewrote the rock handbook for the modern era. Yet, Cobain was also so much more than a traditional music star. He continually championed righteous causes and gave a distinguished voice to those who had not previously had one, meaning that his 1994 suicide was an immense tragedy in many ways.
The loss of his exemplary force of character symbolised the death of the Generation X dream. His role as the zeitgeist-setter meant that a popular culture that was heading in the right direction would make an extended pitstop over the rest of the decade. It would become more egotistical and shameless than anything anyone could have imagined in 1991 when Nirvana broke out with a refreshed countercultural message. This period saw the rise of the joke of post-grunge, Britpop deluge, and a more rabid music industry searching for the next big thing than ever.
As he was the gatekeeper of rock music and broader popular culture after Nevermind, it does make for a compelling mental trip to try to imagine how the rest of Cobain’s decade would have panned out without his suicide. Questions surrounding the future of his heroin addiction, severe mental health issues, and his general creative direction post-In Utero abound, as do ones debating whether the pompous Britpop zeitgeist would have become so prominent without his void to fill.
The cultural conversation surrounding the death of Kurt Cobain is all well and good, but it often forgets one essential factor. More important than his artistic triumphs, he left behind a heartbroken wife, a daughter not old enough to comprehend the situation fully, and other family members, who were all indelibly affected by his choice to burn out and not fade away.
It was Cobain’s wife, Hole frontwoman Courtney Love, who copped a lot of undeserved flack for his death. Outside of the misguided and nasty claims that she had something nefarious to do with his end, she had always been a divisive influence in his life for fans and the media due to her outspoken and broadly controversial nature. She would address this in her band’s song ‘Miss World’, with “I am the girl, you know I lie, I lie and lie”. Ironically, an early version of the track was recorded with Cobain.
The song is a significant point in Courtney Love and Hole’s oeuvre. It was the first single of their hit 1994 album Live Through This, their first major-label release. Issued ahead of the album in March 1994, the excitement it stoked would be interrupted by Kurt Cobain being found dead on April 8th. Despite the era-defining gravity of the Nirvana leader’s suicide, the album still arrived on schedule on the 12th.
Understandably, Cobain’s death meant that Hole was immediately put on hold. This would not be the only tragedy that befell the Los Angeles band. Two months after the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ songwriter’s death, Hole’s bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a heroin overdose. Despite such adversity, though, in August, Hole mustered up the courage to get back on the road with new bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and promoted the album. It ended up shipping over a million copies.
However, following the deaths, and particularly Kurt Cobain’s, the complexion of the lead single ‘Miss World’ would be changed forever, as it is defined by its exploration of self-image and substance abuse, two very close-to-home aspects for Courtney Love. Accordingly, after Cobain’s passing, when performing the song, she would change the line “I am the one you want, can’t look you in the eye” to either “I am the disease that should have died” or “I am the one, the one who should have died”. It’s a profound change of the lyrics by a woman so widely criticised for being an egotist.
