“I Hate Myself and Want to Die” is the name of a Nirvana song, first released (funnily enough) on the big Beavis and Butthead compilation album. It was also intended as the B-side to the single version of “Pennyroyal Tea,” but after Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, these plans were understandably scrapped. The song is, as the kids say, mid in the context of the Nirvana discography. If you Google the phrase - and, for the record, for aesthetic reasons I much prefer adding the second I, that is, “I hate myself and I want to die” - that’s what you mostly get, that song. And yet I know that as a 10 or 11 or 12-year-old, before the song was released, I used to mutter the phrase under my breath, and I know other people who did too. I think kids in “Gen Alpha” who have never heard of Nirvana walk around, ready to say it, looking for a reason to say it, wanting to say it. I think, in fact, that “I hate myself and I want to die” bubbles up from the adolescent subconsciousness and follows us around after that. It’s part of the endowment our younger selves leave to us, this concentrated blast of self-loathing, this sincere-but-not-serious-but-yes-serious desire for self-destruction. I think these feelings are common. I think these feelings are normal. I think these feelings are healthy. I think it would be a better world if more people said to themselves, sometimes, “I hate myself and I want to die.”
"Remember what you felt before the internet installed a permanent self-surveillance system in your brain that subjected all those feelings to cross-examination."
For real. I think every single one of us misses those days.
“...a certain kind of darkness, an almost aspirational darkness, is a natural and healthy aspect of a complex and variegated human soul.”
There’s a reason why ghost stories and faerie tales with dark themes are universal human cultural expressions and why Stephen King is a cultural icon with enough gravitas to be able to authoritatively tell Elon to go fuck himself.
To screen /edit/censor words or phrases you don't think appropriate is where I'm gonna go with this article. That's what struck me. Letting big brother deside what can be written what can be said what can be sung. No way Jose . We are not living in a democracy where free speach is denied. No filters please from government or social media companies....I'll be the filter......thanks
In 1993 when “I Hate Myself and Want to Die" was released, for example-- Toby Keith's, "Should've Been a Cowboy" became the most played song on country charts in the 1990s..
I've always thought the main appeal of Nirvana outside of very simple, extremely catchy songs was that they gave voice to feelings like this in a way that vast majority of pop art did not. The late 80s/early 90s was just as awash in fluffy, slickly produced pop music. Even metal, once a vehicle for emotions polite society mostly preferred to ignore, had turned into arena party rock. Arena party rock was fine, I've even learned to enjoy it as an adult, but it most certainly didn't represent what Nirvana did.
And it goes without saying that these feelings are extremely common given that Nirvana was one of the most successful rock bands in history. It worked even better because it always felt like Cobain really meant it, it wasn't just an act, wasn't some crass marketing scheme, that the music was him just giving voice to how he actually felt.
I don’t have a room so dark in my head, wish you didn’t either. I appreciate the courage with which you live your live, I hope you can find meaning beyond this life.
While I think that Swiftie tier poptimism no doubt has center stage in the American cultural landscape, I think that there is a good deal of extremely popular teenage angst music as well.
Sure Taylor Swift has 100+ million listeners on Spotify, but Lil Peep, JuiceWRLD and XXXTentacion have all been dead for years, yet each still have 15m, 30m and 37m listeners respectively.
Platforms like Soundcloud have let a lot of teenagers unleash a lot of classic angst, despair and rage. I-hate-myself-and-I-want-to-die music doesn't get the same level of attention that it did at grunge peak, but it's close. Close enough, I think, that it could conceivably reclaim the throne in the next couple years.
I often believe the reason that modern teenagers threaten suicide so much is because we've drilled suicide into their heads and its the only way they can express their normal emotions.
At any rate, I can be extremely happy and still listen to Elliot Smith and allow myself to feel all the emotions, I highly recommend young people start listening to sad music and never stop. It doesn't have to be all sad but man, sad music speaks to your soul on a deeply personal level.
I really like this piece; it's a thoughtful articulation of what I think Freud was trying to get at with his idea of thanatos as one of the two basic human motives. But I can't help but note one thing: I just fundamentally disagree with you that it is impossible to suffer nobly. I have seen people do it (check out Nick Cave, for example), and I am trying to do it myself, albeit with varying degrees of success. Sometimes you fail to recognize our human capacity to transcend ourselves, even if only for moments at a time.
Funny, only the night before last I was gushing about "Everytime" and how underrated it is. Has another pop singer in her prime ever released such a starkly morbid single?
Amazing. I've also muttered this phrase under my breath since I was a teenage boy in the 90s - at least daily for a while. Far less often now, but it still comes to mind occasionally. I knew it was a Nirvana song, but somehow never bothered to listen to it until now - the song is besides the point.
I'll have to re-read the article once I can move past my astonishment that I'm not the only person on earth who's grabbed onto this obscure-ish song title and held is close as a bad-day mantra for 25+ years.
The music angle is great as an entry point for discussion, as the comments already show. Having awoken to pop music at the exact moment punk/ new wave sprouted - and a bit later by a couple years than many of my peers - the vibe was different and as outward as inward in its POV. Nirvana was still always off, but contempt for vapid AOR, corp-rock, disco and lite pop was a major element that appealed to the typical fan. It didn’t take long for romantic self- destruction to insert itself into the picture (think Sid Vicious). And that was quite sobering. Reggaeton and its life-affirming qualities were an alternative. And I got into Toots and the Maytals. Years later my son turned 20 and we got a few seconds to dance onstage at a small venue next to Toots. That was 14 years ago and COVID has taken Toots Hibbert (& John Prine, damnit) but I’ll die grateful for that moment.
"You like one thing or one set of things and it leads you to other things and in time your tastes develop and you move on from what you liked."
I read a good paper a few years back arguing that THIS is the real message of Nietzsche's call for "amor fati." It is not, as commonly suggested, a call to live a life that is so bursting at the seams with rich and interesting experiences that we couldn't possibly wish it any different. It is a recognition that if we truly respect the perspective we have at the moment, then we couldn't possibly wish our fates to be any different, because it would not have led us to where we currently are. So that a commitment to loving one's fate is loving the path we've already traveled.
For me it's "slit your wrists and kill yourself." I think I picked it up in university when I was having a bad time. I still say it ten years later. For the life of me I cannot find the recovery, nor beauty, not stoicism in it, nor understand why anyone would set it to music or find it endearing. It is something that I deeply wish I did not have.
(Note I am not at imminent risk of suicide, self-harm, etc.)
"Remember what you felt before the internet installed a permanent self-surveillance system in your brain that subjected all those feelings to cross-examination."
For real. I think every single one of us misses those days.
“...a certain kind of darkness, an almost aspirational darkness, is a natural and healthy aspect of a complex and variegated human soul.”
There’s a reason why ghost stories and faerie tales with dark themes are universal human cultural expressions and why Stephen King is a cultural icon with enough gravitas to be able to authoritatively tell Elon to go fuck himself.
To screen /edit/censor words or phrases you don't think appropriate is where I'm gonna go with this article. That's what struck me. Letting big brother deside what can be written what can be said what can be sung. No way Jose . We are not living in a democracy where free speach is denied. No filters please from government or social media companies....I'll be the filter......thanks
By turns morbid and hopeful. A perfect essay to wake up to on a cold Monday in December.
There is a parallel universe of U.S. music.
In 1993 when “I Hate Myself and Want to Die" was released, for example-- Toby Keith's, "Should've Been a Cowboy" became the most played song on country charts in the 1990s..
It is still played at Oklahoma games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIq1LvzSLsk
I've always thought the main appeal of Nirvana outside of very simple, extremely catchy songs was that they gave voice to feelings like this in a way that vast majority of pop art did not. The late 80s/early 90s was just as awash in fluffy, slickly produced pop music. Even metal, once a vehicle for emotions polite society mostly preferred to ignore, had turned into arena party rock. Arena party rock was fine, I've even learned to enjoy it as an adult, but it most certainly didn't represent what Nirvana did.
And it goes without saying that these feelings are extremely common given that Nirvana was one of the most successful rock bands in history. It worked even better because it always felt like Cobain really meant it, it wasn't just an act, wasn't some crass marketing scheme, that the music was him just giving voice to how he actually felt.
I don’t have a room so dark in my head, wish you didn’t either. I appreciate the courage with which you live your live, I hope you can find meaning beyond this life.
While I think that Swiftie tier poptimism no doubt has center stage in the American cultural landscape, I think that there is a good deal of extremely popular teenage angst music as well.
Sure Taylor Swift has 100+ million listeners on Spotify, but Lil Peep, JuiceWRLD and XXXTentacion have all been dead for years, yet each still have 15m, 30m and 37m listeners respectively.
Platforms like Soundcloud have let a lot of teenagers unleash a lot of classic angst, despair and rage. I-hate-myself-and-I-want-to-die music doesn't get the same level of attention that it did at grunge peak, but it's close. Close enough, I think, that it could conceivably reclaim the throne in the next couple years.
I often believe the reason that modern teenagers threaten suicide so much is because we've drilled suicide into their heads and its the only way they can express their normal emotions.
At any rate, I can be extremely happy and still listen to Elliot Smith and allow myself to feel all the emotions, I highly recommend young people start listening to sad music and never stop. It doesn't have to be all sad but man, sad music speaks to your soul on a deeply personal level.
Youth, the endearing idiot! Yes, this is wonderful, it makes me smile upon all history.
I really like this piece; it's a thoughtful articulation of what I think Freud was trying to get at with his idea of thanatos as one of the two basic human motives. But I can't help but note one thing: I just fundamentally disagree with you that it is impossible to suffer nobly. I have seen people do it (check out Nick Cave, for example), and I am trying to do it myself, albeit with varying degrees of success. Sometimes you fail to recognize our human capacity to transcend ourselves, even if only for moments at a time.
Funny, only the night before last I was gushing about "Everytime" and how underrated it is. Has another pop singer in her prime ever released such a starkly morbid single?
Amazing. I've also muttered this phrase under my breath since I was a teenage boy in the 90s - at least daily for a while. Far less often now, but it still comes to mind occasionally. I knew it was a Nirvana song, but somehow never bothered to listen to it until now - the song is besides the point.
I'll have to re-read the article once I can move past my astonishment that I'm not the only person on earth who's grabbed onto this obscure-ish song title and held is close as a bad-day mantra for 25+ years.
The music angle is great as an entry point for discussion, as the comments already show. Having awoken to pop music at the exact moment punk/ new wave sprouted - and a bit later by a couple years than many of my peers - the vibe was different and as outward as inward in its POV. Nirvana was still always off, but contempt for vapid AOR, corp-rock, disco and lite pop was a major element that appealed to the typical fan. It didn’t take long for romantic self- destruction to insert itself into the picture (think Sid Vicious). And that was quite sobering. Reggaeton and its life-affirming qualities were an alternative. And I got into Toots and the Maytals. Years later my son turned 20 and we got a few seconds to dance onstage at a small venue next to Toots. That was 14 years ago and COVID has taken Toots Hibbert (& John Prine, damnit) but I’ll die grateful for that moment.
"You like one thing or one set of things and it leads you to other things and in time your tastes develop and you move on from what you liked."
I read a good paper a few years back arguing that THIS is the real message of Nietzsche's call for "amor fati." It is not, as commonly suggested, a call to live a life that is so bursting at the seams with rich and interesting experiences that we couldn't possibly wish it any different. It is a recognition that if we truly respect the perspective we have at the moment, then we couldn't possibly wish our fates to be any different, because it would not have led us to where we currently are. So that a commitment to loving one's fate is loving the path we've already traveled.
For me it's "slit your wrists and kill yourself." I think I picked it up in university when I was having a bad time. I still say it ten years later. For the life of me I cannot find the recovery, nor beauty, not stoicism in it, nor understand why anyone would set it to music or find it endearing. It is something that I deeply wish I did not have.
(Note I am not at imminent risk of suicide, self-harm, etc.)