7 Songs That Foreshadowed Awful Events

Grunge rock is tainted with saddening tales and abrupt endings for some of the genre's most pivotal and pioneering figures, with the legendary Kurt Cobain being no exception. In spite of the band’s inspiring legacy which confidently extends into the present day, Nirvana were an active band for just seven years. Formed in 1987 by Cobain and bass guitarist Krist Novoselic, Nirvana experimented with a number of drummers before settling on Dave Grohl ahead of the release of ‘Nevermind’, the band’s iconic second studio album, in 1991.

The band’s third and final studio album, ‘In Utero’, was released in 1993 and Nirvana disbanded a year later following Cobain’s death. But, the focus of this article is a lesser known Nirvana song titled ‘I Hate Myself and I Want to Die’, which failed to make the cut for this album. Recorded in 1993 but left off the ‘In Utero’ album, it was released later the same year as part of a compilation album, before being re-released in 2004. Even though the title is pretty self-explanatory, the lyrics to this song are mostly nonsensical and contain no direct references to suicide. In spite of this, it was a clear foreshadowing of what was to come less than six months later.

Kurt Cobain took his own life on 5th April 1994 aged 27, and for some this marked the end of grunge’s dominance over the rock scene even though the genre still exists in a lesser form to this day.