Why Do We Desire to License Kurt Cobain?

To the left: the Kurt Cobain 28-postcard set. Available on E-Bay, folks!

It has come to my attention via the Chicago Tribune that Courtney Love has sold a quarter of Nirvana’s catalog to New York-based music publishing company Primary Wave for $50 million. Since my source was the Tribune, this news is probably ancient by now, but nonetheless it cast me into a state of despondency. Supposing, as Nietzsche suggested, that truth is a woman, it was dispiriting to hear that moneyed interests were raping her yet again. (Courtney Love is a loving wife, indeed, for obliging Kurt Cobain’s infamous plea from “In Utero” 12+ years after his death.) Now Primary Wave has licensed four Nirvana songs to the TV show “CSI: Miami,” as the gods cackle in sadistic glee.

So I would like to take this occasion to call for the online republication of Mr. Thetan’s 2004 essay re: our desire to psychoanalyze Kurt Cobain. If Courtney Love, Primary Wave, CSI: Miami and their ilk insist on depreciating Cobain’s art, we must re-appreciate it through the limited means at our disposal.