As Creepy As Clowns

Dark Clouds Rain Down Tears Washing Away Swirling Colors From The Clown's Face..

Nirvana's Nevermind: Twenty Years Ago

So here we are today (September 27th, 2011), marking the 20th Anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind. The album, has been hailed as the greatest rock album of all time, the most influential record in modern history, and the last great record that changed the world. So much has been said in the lead up to this release, I ask myself ...what could I add?. Just my own personal memories of the moment of clarity, when a troubled generation found a voice and a mirror.

Sometime in early September 1991, there sat a sixteen year old youth in a growing state of rebellion. Whose hair was, a little too long and in need of a shave. More times than not, depressed, with a bad attitude. It was just before midnight, sitting in the dark, listening to a cheap*ss little AM/FM cassette recorder with detachable speakers...channel surfing, as some have known me to do....

I heard a soft guitar strumming four chords; suddenly it erupted into a full band heavy distortion only to collapse back to a soft verse and ping pong back to a heavy chorus. The music was dark and a bit unnerving, the singer's words slurred, sarcastic, sad and angry. A voice saying:

"With The Lights Out
It's Less Dangerous
Here We Are Now
Entertain Us
I Feel Stupid
And Contagious
Here We Are Now
Entertain Us."
(Previous lyrics copyright of Nirvana)

It was as if the dark cloud of apathy and alienation that hung over many kids, my age had birthed a silver lining, which only we could see.
It was okay to be ugly or awkward, confused and ashamed. It wasn't our fault that Mom and Dad weren't married anymore. We didn't care if we fit in or if the society had a role for us.

So then the song went off the radio, and of course, the DJ didn't bother to say who or what it was. After that it just kind of caught fire. Every kid I knew was talking about this band called Nirvana, this song called Smells Like Teen Spirit, and the album called Nevermind. The bands and artists that had guided us through the eighties, the hair bands, thrash metal, and even the King of Pop himself, fell to the wayside as a new generation of disgruntled at best, and self-destructing at worst, youths cast off the yokes of conventional thoughts, style, and music and embraced the often tear stained face that stared back from the other side of the looking glass.

Loud, rude and monstrous at times, then accompanied by soft, vulnerable, sweet melodies, Nevermind became a 12 part song (well twelve, if you bought one of the first 20,000 pressings...a hidden and at the time unnamed track, now known as Endless, Nameless was cut because of a seven minute gulf in between it and the last song listed on the album) , a ritual to be listened to, in it's entirety, if you were all alone or if you were in a room of people who felt all alone like you. The songs weaved a f*cked up tapestry that became the soundtrack to our lives and somehow through it all, we felt almost alive, for a while.

So we lived. We loved. We did the things that young people do. We laughed. We cried. We lost more innocence and gained more wisdom ....(sometimes). I guess the problem with remembering the "good ole days", is that it becomes painfully clear; that those times were so short lived.

And History knows the end to story. Boy and band become rock stars. Rock star marries Courtney. Rock stars have daughter, Bean. Rock stars have drug. Shotgun and rock star. 27 Club.

So maybe if you are in the mood tonight
Turn out the lights
Come as you are, in bloom and breed
Bring your teen spirit
Bring the lithium
Feed Polly
On a plain
As she drains you
In the lounge act
stay away if
Something's in the way
underneath the bridge
the territorial pissings....

(previous verse contains interpolations of song titles and lyrics from the album Nevermind copyright Nirvana
Meant as a tribute to, only)