Few modern musicians inspire as much curiosity and interest as Kurt Cobain. The songwriter and band Nirvana created perhaps the biggest album and song of the '90s, and Cobain killed himself shortly after rising to prominence. Still, for all the fame and esteem, the performer was fairly restrained, and that's left plenty of room for analysts and fans to theorize about his work. Charles R. Cross is rightly renowned among the most qualified of Cobain experts, thanks not only to his work as the performer's biographer, but also as the former editor of Seattle's The Rocket magazine for 15 years. The author recently revealed a possible new understanding of "Come As You Are," one of Nirvana's biggest hits.
Considering the prominence of the track, it might be surprising to consider how in-the-open the inspiration for its title may have been.
Cross was attending a reading for his new book-Here We Are Now: The Legacy of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana-in Cobain's hometown of Aberdeen, WA, when a reader presented him with an ad for The Morck, a hotel in which Cobain crashed during his brief homeless period. The '40s advertisement featured a familiar motto: "Come as you are."
"Whether Kurt directly took something from that or whether it simply stayed in his subconscious a few years later when he wrote the song, is unknown, but it's a fascinating twist, and perhaps an explanation of the genesis of the title of one of Nirvana's greatest songs," Cross said.
It seems like a pretty solid theory. Cobain spent four months on the streets at the age of 17 after a fight with his mother, and The Morck played a key role in Cobain lore, for those familiar with it. Not only did the budding musician crash many nights in its rooms, it was also the home of the "Fat Man," a character that provided underage Cobain with beer and seemed to have a sincere friendship with the teen, although Cobain never provided his real name.
