Who am I writing to? — You, of course!
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don’t be late
Take a rest as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria, memoria, memoria, memoria.Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria, memoria, memoria, memoria.And I swear that I don’t have a gun
No I don’t have a gun
No I don’t have a gunMemoria, memoria, memoria, memoria.
And I swear that I don’t have a gun
No I don’t have a gun
No I don’t have a gunMemoria, memoria. . .
Watching an audience shot video of a Nirvana performance on 12/31/93 I started thinking about this song again. It came up a lot after Kurt killed himself, because of the irony involved. But there is a lot more to these words than just the irony. I like to think that the repetition of the word “memoria” carries a great deal more significance than the obvious conclusion that it works metrically, where memory does not. The declension in Latin, which Kurt may or may not have been familiar with, places it in the present tense. It isn’t “in memoriam,” a past memory, but a thought borne by the mind, in the present. Consequently, it presents one more contradiction for the song— “an old memoria” is an oxymoron, echoing “as you are, as you were,” or “as a friend, as an old enemy.” Resolving the song requires dealing with the contrast: does it imply that the person addressed by the song was once an enemy, but is now a friend, or does it imply that the person accepts them as both?
I would give primacy to the latter explanation. I think the key is the phrase “as I want you to be.” Any audience is an image held in the mind, a memoria, of what we want them to be. Memoria is also the final stage of rhetoric. The only word that has greater frequency in this part of the song is the word as, used as a preposition to compare, but also to subordinate these thoughts within the overarching theme of memoria.
The closing lyrics, outside the obviously ironic context of the memory of what Kurt did to himself, suggest a sort of vulnerability to the contradiction. A gun can be either an offensive, or defensive weapon. In the end, I suppose he didn’t have a gun in that sense, really. Except, in his songs, as he was so incredibly careful and complex in composing this lament to “audience,” which highlights the linguistic affinity of enemy and memory. The image of audience that we carry in our heads is always, trend, friend, and enemy.
This connects in a really odd way with William Blake. The memory that he sought to fight was of the past, not of the present, though. The grand narratives that drive us on, to Blake, were the enemy. That sort of ahistoricism is most definately modern; embracing the problems of dealing with the everpresent nature of memory, as it impacts the present, is more pronouncedly postmodern. Cobain’s enemy was clearly in the present.
But I swear that I don’t have a gun, either. Really. I mean it.
How can anyone look at a picture of Kurdt and not cry ? Once I went to church with Beverley. The preacher cited Kurt as an example of a bad person. Once.
—–COMMENT:
Once, Jeff and I went to see Greg Sage at the Palace. He played with Hole, whom I had read about , and Nirvana, whom I knew nothing about. WE WALKED OUT ON NIRVANA !!! Hey, it was good, but understand, WE JUST SAW GREG SAGE !!!!!! How are you gonna fucking top that !!!!????