Better to Burn Out

Kurt Cobain's voice does weird things to me.

Not just his singing voice, either. The ordinary voice he used was so… I don't know, just mind-blowing. Raspy and thin, when you first hear it. But when you hear more you realize that there are so many layers behind the way his voice is shaped, thousands of little stories wrapped up in his smoker's throat. It hitches here and there, knots rise up like on the bark of an old tree. Seemingly stuck in the middle of a big man and a teenage boy, it's intricate and knocks the fucking wind out of me. It makes my inside ache so badly.

And I don't even know why.

I never heard it in person. I never heard it in casual conversation or had it whispered in my ear or any of that. All I know is that it makes my heart pound and my mind race.

It's really odd the things a voice can do to you, the effect it can have. It can lull you to sleep, or light a fire inside your soul.