Don't play the chords of fame

Today 14 years ago the body of Kurt Cobain was found in Seattle. It is said he died on April 5th but we can’t be for sure. Tomorrow 32 years ago another American singer/songwriter killed himself: Phil Ochs, topical singer and political activist. One of the last songs he wrote was "Chords of Fame" which would have been a good advice to young Kurt Cobain:

I found him by the stage last night
He was breathing his last breath
A bottle of wine and a cigarette
Was all that he had left
I can see you make the music
cause you carry a guitar
God help the troubadour
Who tries to be a star

So play the chords of love, my friend
Play the chords of pain
If you want to keep your song,
Dont, dont, dont, dont play the chords of fame

I seen my share of hustlers
As they try to take the world
When they find their melody
Theyre surrounded by the girls
But it all fades so quickly
Like a sunny summer day
Reporters ask you questions
They write down what you say

So play the chords of love, my friend
Play the chords of pain
If you want to keep your song,
Dont, dont, dont, dont play the chords of fame

Theyll rob you of your innocence
They will put you up for sale
The more that you will find success
The more that you will fail
I been around, Ive had my share
And I really cant complain
But I wonder who I left behind
The other side of fame

So play the chords of love, my friend
Play the chords of pain
If you want to keep your song,
Dont, dont, dont, dont play the chords of fame (download the live version from "Gunfight at Carnegie Hall")


And while posting I this great tune I take the chance to give you a translation to the main body of text of this posting: http://brotbeutel.blogspot.com/2008/01/outcesticide-6-death-of-kurt-cobain.html. The email in German language is an answer to someone who mailed to me and asked for some advice for his presentation about Kurt Cobain at school. I took the chance to express my own theory about the question: suicide or murder. Some years ago I read the book "Love and death. The murder of Kurt Cobain" by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace who really turned every stone in Kurts life and asked at lot of dubious people, so in the end they had a lot of questions but no answers. This is the failure of all those experts who want to prove that Cobain was murdered that they give no answers. And they all point their fingers at Courtney Love, but no one mentions that Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl and Goldmountain Management had some good reasons to kill Kurt too. They lost an awful lot of money because Kurt refused to take part in Loolapalooza 1994 and because Kurt had renegotiated all the copyrights for Nevermind. When it was first released all the music was credited to Cobain/Grohl/ Novoselic, but now Kurt claimed that he wrote all the music and therefore he wanted the money Krist and Dave had received in the past for copyrights. Finally everybody knows that a dead pop star is a jackpot like Elvis or John Lennon. Kurts death was a jackpot too for the record company as we all know. But having a reason to kill someone does not mean they actually hired a killer. Of course there are some reasons to be suspicious whether Kurt killed himself or not. Like the coroner Nikolas Hartshorne was an old friend of Courtney, he sure could have hushed up details about Kurts death, but did he really? Of course the police checked the gun for finger prints only after 4 weeks and found nothing but does that prove that there were fingerprints from someone else on the gun before? So Sgt. Cameron was dismissed from Seattle police in 1999 for some criminal offence, but does that prove he hushed up something while investigating Kurts death? So Detective Antonio Terry was shot in 1994 and Courtney gave his widow some money but does that prove something apart from that Courtney sometimes has a good heart? All those people who doubt that Kurt killed himself fail to tell the story how the murder could have happened. They fail to answer the following questions:
1) How did the killer enter and leave the house?
2) How did the killer know that Kurt was in the house?
3) How did the killer came into the possession of the shotgun, which Dylan Carlson had bought for Kurt just before Kurts takeoff to Los Angeles and was hidden by Kurt in his house?
4) How could the killer put the shotgun into Kurts mouth without Kurts resistance?!
5) How did the deadly dose of heroin come in the blood of Kurt when he was already dead?
6) Or the other way around: why still shoot Kurt into the head when there already was a deadly dose of heroin his blood?
7) How did the killer inject Kurt a deadly dose of heroin without Kurts resistance?
8) How did the killer convince Kurt to drink a root beer spiced with Rohypnol or some other drug to send him into sleep?
9) And how did the killer came into the possession the farewell letter and when did he falsify it?
Noone answers these questions and therefore I think all murder theories regarding Kurt Cobain are a huge pile of horseshit. So here is my own theory about the death of Kurt Cobain:
One of the most interesting writings about Kurts death is "Dead men don’t pull triggers" which argues that with a morphine dose of 1.52 milligramms in your blood you are dead and can’t pull the trigger of a shotgun anymore. As far as I know there is no official statement about a high morphine concentration in the blood of Cobain but lets assume it is correct. So Kurt died through an overdose of heroin. And the person who fired the shotgun at his head shot at a dead body and so there is no murder. You can’t kill someone who is already dead. And it can’t be the other way round because when Kurt died through the shotgun then injecting heroin couldn’t create any morphine in this blood anymore. For that you need a living body. It’s like that stupid theory that the hair of dead people still grows. In fact the body looses water and shrinks and that give the illusion that the hair still grows.
So there are 2 questions:
1) How did Kurt overdose by heroin?
2) Who shot in the head of the dead body?
The answer to the first question is pretty simple: Kurt just overdosed by himself, either intentionally or inadvertently. One could also assume someone else injected the overdose but why would Kurt allow this? Was he tricked? Or was he already in a coma through some other drugs? But when someone else kills Kurt with an overdose of heroin why shoot in his head afterwards? He could have used the shotgun without an additional overdose of heroin. A killer would have used one tool – shotgun or heroin. The fact that there was an overdose and the gun wound too proves that Kurt overdosed by himself. So it was a suicide or an accident. But there was no murder.
So who shot in Kurts head? Someone must have discovered the corpse of Kurt, probably babysitter Michael "Cali" DeWitt. He called Courtney and she decided that a death through an overdose is not so interesting for the public and media, a suicide with a gun would raise more publicity. So she ordered DeWitt to shot in Kurts head. Whether DeWitt shot himself or perhaps Dylan Carlson, who had bought the rifle for Kurt, did it, who cares. Anyway this scenario just fits with the fact that the cartridge of the rifle was on the wrong side of the corpse.
And what about this farewell letter? Maybe it’s real as Kurt could have committed suicide through an overdose of heroin. Maybe it’s faked, but it sure is not a complete fake and it was not done by Courtney as she was in Los Angeles. Most likely only the last lines "Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your altar. Pleas keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me. I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!" could be written by Cali DeWitt as his writing is in some ways similar to Kurts. Cali could have used a draft of another letter from Kurt about quitting music business. But these lines could also be written by Kurt himself because it is known that the handwriting changes with your mood.
And what about Tom Grant, the detective? Maybe Courtney really wanted to find Kurt when she asked for Grants help, but when she got the phone call that Kurt is dead she decided to prevent Grant from finding the body until the gunshot scenario and the farewell letter was created. And the coroner Nikolas Hartshorne helped Courtney to hush up the death by overdose. The police in Seattle was simply only lazy and accepted the suicide through gunshot without asking to much questions, because that would keep the work small and of course Kurt was just another useless stupid junkie and those are better dead than alive.
So if you check all the known facts the only possible answer is: Kurt died through an overdose of heroin and the shot in the head was just produced by Courtney Love for better publicity. Well that’s no good behaviour, but it’s also no murder.
If you think I’m wrong leave your comment below but please do not comment if you don’t have any facts that I may have overlooked.

Update 31.3.2021: The death of Kurt Cobain - history has to be rewritten