by Curt Page

The debate has been heard before. Did Kurt Cobain have anything to do with writing the material for Hole's ground breaking second release "Live Through This"? To be totally honest only Kurt & Courtney will ever know for sure. However, a rather strong case can be built in support of this argument.

Granted, it would be difficult to be married and living day to day with a musician as talented as Kurt Cobain was and not have at least something rub off. But was there more than just a little creative collaboration going on? Did Kurt want Courtney's career to take off? So much so that he did a little more than just help?

In all fairness, you can't say without a doubt that Courtney ripped Kurt off. It's quite possible that he insisted on helping. And no matter how opposed to it she might have been, it would be nearly impossible not to tap into his vast talent as a song writer. Few artists concerned with a new album, especially one as long anticipated and crucial as Hole's "Live Through This" was going to be, could just turn their backs on this material (assuming Kurt had something to do with it). The songs are just too good.

Another cause for this rumor is that it has been nearly four years now since the release of "Live Through This", causing many to speculate that a partial reason is that Courtney's song writer is dead. Also, the only Hole releases since his death have been previously released B-sides and a cover song.

Very few albums come to mind where the song writing between one and the next are as drastic. On Hole's debut release, "Pretty on the Inside", the only really strong cut is 'Teenage Whore'. The rest have been described, at best, as .."difficult to listen to".

Following are excerpts from interviews and song clips as well as general observances. The rest is entirely up to you.

After 'Dumb' on the Rome show on 2/22/94, Kurt plays a few chords on his guitar and Dave joins in on the kick drum.

On a Hole bootleg called "Rumours, Lies and Media Rape" there is a song called 'Time to Kill' (bootleg name).

It is a live song, that is unreleased (circa 1995). The chord structures appear to be very similar. Both songs roughly follow the same chord progression, but Hole's version is slower.

Consider some of the following. Many of the lyrics on "Live Through This" are written from the male perspective. As in "was she asking for it..." "she walks over me". Kurt did this in is some songs, most notably on 'Been a Son' and 'Oh, the Guilt'. A lot of the songs on "Live Through This" follow the classic NIRVANA quiet verse, loud chorus, quiet chorus format. The vocals also use Kurt's style, i.e. singing softly then going up an octave and screaming. The riff on 'Plump' uses the same chords as 'Breed' but in a different order. Kurt did this exact same thing on 'Rape Me' and 'Dumb'. Kurt had also been collecting "Doll Parts" long before he met Courtney.

In Come As You Are, by Michael Azerrad, on page 329 Kurt says when asked about 'Radio Friendly Unit Shifter'
(acknowledging it's a throwaway):

"It could have been better"...."I know we could have had a few better songs on the album".

What were these songs? Did Kurt have songs that ended up on "Live Through This" lying around but refuse to use them because they fit the "Nevermind" verse/chorus/verse formula? Kurt didn't put that many newly written songs on "In Utero" and as we know, a lot were written around and before the time of "Nevermind" ('Dumb', 'All Apologies', 'Pennyroyal Tea', 'Rape Me'). Perhaps he donated some to Courtney? Also during 1992/1993 snippets circulated in newspapers about Kurt writing half of "Live Through This" with Courtney and in particular, 'Pennyroyal Tea', which was definitely meant to be written by both Kurt and Courtney. Courtney has stated that Kurt was the song writer and was better than her, but she was better at writing lyrics.

Yet another song, 'Your Empathy' (bootleg name) is an unreleased live song circa 1993. Although not an exact duplicate, the chord progression and key does sound more than a little like 'Curmudgeon'. Empathy is also a word that was used frequently by Kurt, even included in his suicide note.

In the issue of NME 24th July, 1993, there was an exclusive interview with Kurt and Courtney at their Seattle home. The main agenda for the article, written by Brian Willis, was a preview of In Utero. The following was written about 'Pennyroyal Tea' and is taken straight from the article:

'Pennyroyal Tea', meanwhile was co-written with Courtney and was played on last autumn's European tour. "It's about a method of inducing abortions," she explains. "It's been around for years. I'm going to record a version of it for my album too."

It is very interesting that she said this, especially with Kurt being there, as he says in Come As You Are:

Kurt also wrote the anthemic 'Pennyroyal Tea' in the apartment on Pear Street during the bleak winter of 1990, after the band signed. "Dave and I were screwing around on the 4-track and I wrote that song in about 30 seconds," says Kurt. "And I sat down for like half an hour and wrote the lyrics and then recorded it."

The book states that around December 1990 Dave and Courtney became friendly and spent a lot of time on the phone. It seems her and Kurt started to get it together around May 1991, which means that it seems very unlikely Courtney co-wrote Pennyroyal Tea. The book also has another interesting statement from Kurt:

"....that's why it's so easy to play songs with Courtney, every time we jam on something, we write a great song."

From this it sounds like they must have written quite a few songs together but where are they?

Another song that raises speculation that Courtney not only lifted songs from Kurt himself but also from his influences is Gang of Four's 'Natural's Not in it' from the album "Entertainment!". Tad Doyle writes in the liner notes, "'Entertainment!' changed my life. It did for Kurt Cobain too" . The Gang of Four are listed as an influence on Kurt in "Come As You Are".

Listen closely to this song and then to the song 'Credit in the Straight World' by Hole. Again, although not a note for note copy, it does have the same feel, tempo and structure.

Another song Kurt covered that Courtney also played live was Ledbelly's 'In the Pines'. Odd since very few if any articles ever quote Courtney as saying that Leadbelly was an influence. If so, he became one after meeting Kurt. Granted, although Kurt recorded or started playing this song only after recording it on the unbelievable Mark Lanegan solo album "The Winding Sheet", he had mentioned Leadbelly prior and the song itself was originally recorded with Lanegan for a tribute album to Leadbelly that they had planned on making but fell apart.

The following information is taken from the September 1992 issue of the British Magazine "Select". It features an interview with NIRVANA at their Belfast show in Ireland on June 22, 1992.

He (Cobain) has written the next album. They have about 14 songs, none of which they want to do live yet in case they get bootlegged. Most of them date from the "Nevermind" songwriting sessions...... "They could be considered B-sides," Kurt says with a smile. "So I guess the next album isn't going to be as good as everyone's expecting. I'm just too lazy to write new songs, so I guess people are just going to have to put up with year-old B-sides"...

Kurt's keen that it have a more grungified feel than "Nevermind". 'Curmudgeon' gives you a good idea what to expect: raw ragged and heavy enough to sound like it comes off "Bleach".....

What are the chances of him and Courtney recording together?

"I don't know". he says thoughtfully, "We like to play music together at home. It's a lot of fun. But there's nothing planned. It may happen one day."

Do you sing duets?

"Yeah, just like Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. We do a killer rendition of 'Stop Dragging My Heart Around'".

So far the only duet to really surface is a bootleg recording known as 'It's Closing Soon' or 'Drunk in Rio'. Courtney has even performed it live with Hole, stating before the song that it was "written by Courtney, Kurt and Patty". The clip provided is with Kurt.

Then came probably the most damaging evidence to date: The demo tape given to KNDD 107.7 The End in Seattle. The tape was played live on KNDD as well as ending up on many bootlegs. This raises many questions a few of which are: Did Kurt write this song or is he just doing what it appears, singing backup? Are there more tracks like this in existance? What overall role (if any) did Kurt play in the album?

Courtney herself admits, in print, that Kurt is on several tracks on "Live Through This", that if you listen closely you can hear him throughout.

Another song (and this has been rumored before) that Kurt may have had a hand in is 'Old Age'. This song from start to finish just sounds like a song Kurt would write. Again, this song is also written from the male perspective with lots of she references.

Editors note:

Since the writing of this article several months ago, more information has come to light regarding this particular song. Recently a Seattle magazine called The Stranger released a clip of NIRVANA performing Old Age. Also released was a statement from Krist Novoselic stating that this was a NIRVANA song that Kurt wrote. This recording is apparently from a pre-Nevermind demo tape and is exactly what Hole released but with what appears to be different lyrics.

And what does BMI say about this song?

OLD AGE                                  BMI Work # 001954949

Writers                                Current Affil.        CAE #

  LOVE COURTNEY M                      BMI               232510513

Publishers                             Current Affil.        CAE # 

  BAD SISTER MUSIC                     BMI               231828577

Currently rumors are still circulating regarding Courtney and Kurt's writing relationship. Hole's next album has been pushed back several times. Geffen states that everything is fine. Insiders say several things: Patty is about to quit, fed up with Courtney's preoccupation with Hollywood and its circle. Eric just goes from club to club each night. Billy Corgan bailed out of it for various reasons. All this leads the skeptic to believe she has no worthy material. Then to add fuel to the fire the rumor that Courtney was planning on using Kurt demo's and adding her vocals to the mix arose. Proceeds are to go to the fight against drugs. Possibly an entire album worth of Kurt tracks....and on and on...

The most recent definitive evidence to date surrounding the Kurt/Courtney song controversy was during Hole's Unplugged performance for MTV. Courtney surprised everyone by including a song that was previously known only to the bootleg community as 'On the Mountain'. The song title was apparently come upon by listening to the only known recording of this song by NIRVANA. The song was performed in Chicago in 1993. The quality of this song is poor at best. Dave introduces the song but it is very difficult to understand what he says due to the quality of the recording. If you use your imagination I suppose you could surmise that he calls it 'On the Mountain' although it has also been called 'Autopilot'. My belief is that Dave thought they were going to perform 'All Apologies' (which was played next) but that Kurt started playing before Dave could finish saying the title, thus the title never was given.

During the Hole performance Courtney begins by saying that it was one of the last songs that Kurt ever wrote. She also prefaces the song by saying that they would not do it justice and even apologizes afterwards. The music is played well but Courtney seems to be singing in either the wrong key or a key difficult for her. Hole's version of the song does seem to differ somewhat from the live performance that NIRVANA did. The song is given the (presumably correct) title of 'You've Got No Right' although the chorus sounds a lot like "You know you're right". NIRVANA's version is much longer than the one that Hole performed and the lyrics are different.

This leads to speculation that when NIRVANA performed the song it was probably in its infancy and was changed by Kurt at some point (as he did with many new songs like Imodium, All Apologies, Rape Me and Heart-Shaped Box) between the time he was testing it out with a crowd and the time it was finalized.

So if Courtney's version was different does that mean that this song exists somewhere? It would almost have to since it's doubtful that Courtney would only have a one night only live version from 1993. She must have had a source other than the Chicago show. She has also mentioned in print that two of Kurt's songs were given to friends (Mark Lanegan & Iggy Pop) for future recordings. So if Courtney has these songs to give to others then they must have been laid down as at least demo's at some time. If Kurt recorded 'You've Got No Right' as well as 'Opinion' (the other song reportedly given away) then there must be more. She has mentioned at least one other song 'Me & My I.V.' in interviews.

So Courtney is now sort of between a rock and a hard place. If she relied on Kurt's songwriting for "Live Through This" and other recordings and her next release is obviously below the quality of her last release she's going to get it from all sides. However if she tries to pass off some of Kurt's unreleased recordings as her own it's almost a given that someone will come forward and admit that they were Kurt's. And if she admits songs on her next release are Kurt's then she gets criticized for lack of talent and the whole "Live Through This" debate will start again.

Some might see her recent makeover and Hollywood move as a backup plan to a failed music career or an excuse if the album does poorly. She has also hinted that her next album will be different than her last. She has made statements regarding a change of direction. Is this due to the natural growth of an artist or a realization that she can't produce another album like the last? The music industry has changed drastically since 1994 and it's quite possible that an album as good as "Live Through This" wouldn't be accepted by the masses in 1998 anyway. Personally, I look forward to the next Hole release. Even good music is better than what's currently available. And Courtney always makes life more interesting.

* Special Thanks to Chris Lomas for his help with the article.