Kurt Cobain: Your memories 30 years after his death

It was 30 years ago Friday that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, wracked by pain, addiction and depression, retreated to a greenhouse above the garage of his Seattle home and took his own life.

April 5, 1994. He was 27.

Family, friends and fans had known that Cobain was in trouble for some time. But that didn’t lessen the loss of a singer, guitarist and songwriter who had become an (unwilling) icon seemingly overnight.

To mark the 30th anniversary of Cobain’s death, Yahoo Entertainment gathered memories of the Nirvana frontman from readers like you.

Here are some of your most vivid and moving responses. They have been edited for length and clarity.

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

CHRISTINE C., 41: I was in my basement watching MTV and MTV News came on with Kurt Loder. For some reason, as soon as I saw a picture of Kurt I knew. It crushed me nonetheless.

MARCO, 41: Loder said that the body of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain had been found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home in Seattle. I remember it physically. It felt like my stomach had dropped. It actually hurt the moment I heard that news. I don't remember much after that to be honest, but that particular news and that pain I'll remember forever.

DREW H., 43: I was in junior high. The day after we heard, two of my friends wore prom dresses to school in honor of Kurt.

KIM, 44: I cried and thought about his daughter and how awful it would be to grow up without a dad. It was the first real death of a personality that I cared about, and the fact that it was a suicide was even worse because I was 14 and didn't understand it. I remember being in a haze for a few hours after.

DANI, 45: I was a senior in high school and we had a senior lounge. I was there when one of my friends heard the news and started crying hysterically. Back then, we didn't have phones or social media, so to this day I'm not sure how she heard about it.

JILL, 47: Girls who were listening to New Kids on the Block only a year previously were crying at school.

ZACH ZIMMERMAN, 44: My dad and I were on a bike ride which was taking us the entire way around Lake Washington. Twenty some miles in, we were riding along Lake Washington Blvd. and came across a police blockade. We were confused at first what had happened and weren’t aware of any events that day. Finally we found a side street and were allowed to ride through and one police officer told us what had happened. We rode by the front of the house and several more police cars and other emergency responders were there.

CHRIS, 45: I remember how his loss made my own mortality feel real. It's all my friends and I talked about for weeks. I bought two giant flags containing his suicide note and death certificate and they stayed on my wall until I moved out of my parents' place.

LEELEE, 56: About six friends and I were sitting around playing pool at a bar in Seattle, having some cocktails. Oddly enough, Nirvana was blasting from what I assume was the "jukebox." It was a sports bar, so there were a lot of TVs with sports playing. All of a sudden the TVs weren't showing sports anymore. They were showing flashes of Kurt Cobain. Then I heard the sobbing. Some folks were screaming. The TV stayed on the rest of the night in the bar. Nobody left where they sat.

JOHN CROWLEY, 59: It was eerie at the time, eerie when I look back. I was browsing the bins at Tower Records in Berkeley. The music on the store sound system stopped, and there was a distinct pause without a subsequent song beginning. Then an employee announced that Kurt Cobain had died. It was very brief. No details, repeated once to make sure people understood what they'd just heard. Music did not resume. People kind of shuffled out of the store, quietly.

LEE, 50: I was driving down a street in Lexington, Ky., when a DJ came on the radio and said, “A body was discovered in Kurt Cobain's home.” My initial thought was that Kurt Cobain had murdered someone. When it was revealed what actually happened, I guess I was more confused than anything. Like, “Why would he do that?”

MELISSA HOLTZE, 47: I was a senior in high school. I was visiting my mom in Lahaina, Maui, a few months before I was about to move out there permanently after graduation. We were sitting for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Kurt was up on one of the many TVs that used to play MTV videos constantly. I looked up and said, “Ugh, I still love him so much!” My mom looked at me with a very serious look and said, “ You don’t know, do you?” I did not. I had been traveling when he took his life, and this was way before we had instant news at our fingertips. I was devastated.

How did you discover Nirvana?

JENNIFER, 50: I had been lucky enough to see Nirvana play in a nearly empty local club in the fall of 1991. I hadn’t heard of them before; I remember it was a Wednesday night, and I only went because there was nothing else going on. But I knew I was witnessing the start of something huge.

WILLIAM DEBRIS, 57: It was all hair bands. I was driving by a large cemetery and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came on the radio. K.C. had one metal station and this was new. I pulled over and banged my head to this revelation — this raw, melodic rage anthem. I knew right then music had just changed forever. And I couldn't have been happier.

CHRIS, 45: I first saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and I remember how different it felt from everything else that was going on. The Seattle thing was still very young and special. Within days of seeing that video I was at dinner at a Wendy's, and my older cousin told me she had already bought the CD of Nevermind. I was so jealous. I didn't have a CD player yet, so I couldn't wait until the next time my family was going to her house. It was the longest two or three weeks of my life, and when I finally went over, I came ready with a stack of blank cassettes in hand. She and I spent all night poring over the half-written lyrics in the insert and trying to identify which of those lyrics went with which songs.

DAN, 46: Kurt was well-read, antiracist, a feminist and his lyrics could be absurd and nonsensical in a somehow subversive way. Those qualities were very appealing to a bookish misfit like I was.

PATRICK B., 50: I saw them at the Vatican in Houston a month after Nevermind came out. I worked at Toys R Us and there was a girl I liked there. I had an extra ticket, and I asked if she had heard of Nirvana. She had not heard of them, so I asked her to go. She pretty much freaked out after the show. She probably has the best “discover Nirvana” story: "This guy at work, don't even remember his name, asked me to go to a concert. I had never heard of the band, there were less than 800 people there. Ended up being Nirvana!"

JOHN L., 46: The first time I heard Nirvana was at a dance in junior high. The DJ played “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and of course the guys started moshing. I was short and weak and got knocked to the ground instantly!

SUMMER, 46: I wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music. My parents were very religious and strict. But I heard Nirvana at a friend’s house. I was hooked on the music and would borrow tapes from my friends and sneak listening to the music on my Walkman. Of course I was caught, the music was confiscated and I got a month of restriction — but it was worth it. I would borrow another tape just to be caught again.

What did Cobain mean to you then?

WILLIAM DEBRIS, 57: I had just seen Nirvana in October 1993 at a smaller venue in Kansas, six months before he died. They played for almost three hours. At the end of the concert Kurt sat on the stage and was just grinding on his guitar — no melody, no song, just grinding on it loudly. He looked up and said, "You guys would listen to this shit all night," and then he got up and walked off the stage. And yes, Kurt, we would have, just to keep seeing you play.

MARK, 39: The [MTV] Unplugged performance got me. It's probably my first memory of adults being sad and honest at the same time. In my house, those things were mutually exclusive.

CHRIS, 45: Kurt Cobain was an enigma — a figure I couldn't really understand but desperately wanted to. I felt that I didn't really fit into the world in general and here was a whole genre that was there to welcome me.

CLAYTON C., 42: I am an African American male and grew up listening to soul, R&B, pop and hip-hop. But I was part of a busing program that led to me going to a predominately white school on the other side of town. My classmates were wearing Green Day, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins T-shirts and listening to all of their music. It was a door to a whole other world that I didn’t know much about.

RYAN, 47: Nirvana was by far my favorite band. I learned to play guitar by trying to figure out Nirvana songs. In high school, some kids even referred to me as "Nirvana" rather than my name because I was so obsessed with the band.

ADAM REHMEIER, 47: Kurt was able to channel from the purest place. I think he would cringe to be compared to the Beatles, because he loved them so much and they're obviously the biggest band to ever exist. But the fact is, he was a game changer. He was absolutely selfless, choosing to bring attention to smaller bands who were his idols and championing them when he was literally the biggest rock star in the world. He also was a pioneer for speaking out against violence towards women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.

JILL, 47: Outcasts and misfits recognize one another; Kurt was one. He didn’t pander, even to his misfit peers. Then the jocks and New Kids fans found Nirvana. It changed everything. The kids who had always snickered at us were now asking where we bought our clothes.

What does Cobain mean to you today?

GREG, 47: I stop everything I’m doing when a Nirvana song is on.

CHRISTINE C. 41: If anything I admire him more. Being fake and conformist was not his thing. Hard and admirable to do.

KEVIN EASTER, 56: I think the biggest difference is now I feel tremendous sadness sometimes when I listen. I think of him leaving his wife and child behind — how difficult that had to be and then how much pain he must have felt to take his life and leave them that way. I feel more empathetic towards him and the demons he couldn't outrun.

JUD, 39: He paved the way for my own exploration of music and music experimentalism. He was my introduction to feminism and the idea of being an ally to the LGBTQ community. He was my biggest role model as a teenager. He helped me get through school; he made me realize it was OK to be weird and different.

DAVID, 45: Cobain fed my insatiable curiosity to learn more and dig deeper, to read liner notes and love the bands behind the bands. To be honest, my musical tastes have mellowed, but the idea of Nirvana is still as important to me as it always was.

JOHN L., 46: The first day back to school after spring break, I was in math class talking to classmates who were also Nirvana fans about what had happened. We did not want to be there, but talking about Kurt openly with other people was comforting. Years later I found out one of the girls I talked to that day in math class also tragically took her own life. Whenever I think about Kurt or listen to his music, I also think of my high school classmate.

DANIEL F., 54: When I came out after college, I was in a good place with it because of people like Kurt, who seemed like he wouldn't care one way or the other. There is a photo of RuPaul holding Frances Bean, with Kurt, dwarfed by this glamazon, smiling and accepting. It made me feel accepted too — that being gay was normal.

MARCO, 41: Now, at 41, I look at Kurt and I see the young man. What I thought was cool and rebellious as a teenager, I now see as kind of insufferable. I still love Nirvana and still count Kurt as one of my heroes, but I have shed my rose-colored glasses and see Kurt as what he always was — a guy who had flaws, like we all do.

JILL, 47: Now as an adult, I hear the brilliance outshine the pain. As a mother, I wish he experienced the joys of watching his child grow up. I wonder what a wiser, more experienced Kurt would write today, even if he kept it only for himself.

LEELEE. 56: Seattle, the grunge scene, everything around that time — those years were the best of my life. Now I'm fighting for my life with cancer. I believe listening to Nirvana would make me feel some pain I don't want to feel right now.

ANONYMOUS, 45: It is strange to remember him. I blocked any singular memory of my time listening to his music. Now that I'm an adult and know how he felt about it all and how much fame affected him, I have decided to let him rest. I buried my Nirvana music a long time ago and wished him peace. I hope he is at peace.

DAN, 46: My kids are 8 and 5. It's fun to watch their reaction to Nirvana. It's primal. They head-bang and run around the living room like animals. There is something in Kurt’s music that goes right to your heart, mind and nervous system.

MARK ROGERS, 55: When music is that good, nobody should be surprised if future generations tune in.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.