Nirvana: Unplugged

Allow me to recount a few memories from the oh-so-awkward days of puberty. Most of them, I’ve repressed. Like many people, middle school was the worst part of my life. And I had it pretty good. I was relatively popular, played sports, had a couple of girlfriends, even touched a boob. Despite all those accomplishments, I was constantly worried about being cool and accepted. In an effort to fit in, I sacrificed what little integrity and values I had, and shit on anyone the kids I desperately wanted to be accepted by, felt like being mean to that week. It was kill or be killed and I was such an incredibly good follower, I was only subconsciously aware of what I was doing.

So much of who I was and what I did makes me ashamed. When I watch movies like “Mean Girls” or “Thirteen” I can’t help but think I contributed to kids behaving like that. I try to never reminisce about that time, because quite frankly there’s very little to be nostalgic about. I was a mean, shallow, spineless person, and I’ll always feel guilty about the way I treated my peers.

Despite all that, I want to travel down those old halls for a bit. If I try really hard, bits and pieces come back to me. Mrs. Devour’s deodorant checks, wall ball and butts up outside the school, passing elaborately folded notes in between classes, Airwalks, being punched in the back of my head by Alex Doughty, trapper keepers, my girl-like long hair, smoking cigarettes in the back of Fast Break, spending six months learning how to inhale, aggressive rollerblading, wearing my only long sleeve tee-shirt every day underneath a Grateful Dead tie dye two sizes two big, and of course the music.

I remember sitting on the floor of Dan Freshman’s bedroom, playing Magic: The Gathering (which, let me assure you, was cool at my middle school… seriously, I know that might be hard to believe, but it was), listening to Pearl Jam, Phish, Sound Garden, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, and of course, Nirvana. And I remember the day Dan got Nirvana “Unplugged” and we sat anxiously listening to it. I remember being disappointed on that first listen. I didn’t know the songs, couldn’t head bang to them, wasn’t sure why they didn’t play, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Heart Shaped Box.” But in one of my prouder memories, I refused to give up on the band I loved so much. We played it again and again, and after countless games of Magic and numerous listens, we came to appreciate and love the album. And for a year or so, I can’t remember liking any album as much as I liked Nirvana “Unplugged.” I don’t know if I knew why I loved the album, but it’s as pleasant a middle school memory as I have.

In high school I got into Phish and other jam bands and left poor Nirvana “Unplugged” to collect dust in my steadily growing CD collection. It did just that, until my freshman year of college. I went up to Quebec to protest the Summit of the Americas. On my drive back, someone in my affinity group, popped in the CD. There were four of us, a white upper middle class hippie female ultimate frisbee player, a black lower middle class lesbian rugby player, and white middle class male Marxist grad student, and myself. Our ages, backgrounds, and foregrounds were all different, but when that album came on, we all had something in common. Everyone of us could sing along to every song on the album.

From that point on the CD was always in constant rotation in my CD player. I hadn’t listened to it in a few months, until this morning, when I blasted it on my car stereo as I drove in to work. I can still sing along to all the songs and was more than happy to do so. Listening and singing along, it became clear to me for the first time, just why I love this album so much as an awkward adolescent. There was something about Kurt Cobain’s voice that tapped into teen angst better than anything I’ve ever heard.

As I sang this morning, I was overcome with that same angst. A bit of nervousness, sadness, self-loathing, fear, cockiness, naivety, and anger seems to be imbedded in various combinations in each of the songs. I was transported back to those awful days of middle school, terrified at first, but then comforted by the songs that had brought me there. In a time when I was so desperate to have cool friends, and my cool friends were so desperate to remain cool, one of the few things I could count on was Nirvana. All the anger and frustration and fear I was feeling, could be unloaded as I sang along to good old Nirvana “Unplugged.”

If this album was a part of your life at some point and you’ve lost touch, I urge you to pull it out and listen to it. It remains one of my all-time favorite albums. And I could go on and on about each individual track, but that’s not what this is about. Listening to the album was about understanding who I was at a time in my life, when I had no idea what I was doing or why. It’s about coming to terms with the fact that I can’t change the awful way I treated people; I can only vow to never behave like that again. It’s about taking stock of my life and appreciating just how good it is these days. And most of all, it’s about learning to appreciate and enjoy the worst of times and in doing so, coming to terms with my past.