Francis Bean

Francis Bean Cobain is now 22. She has been in the news lately discussing her father, Kurt Cobain (lead singer of the seminal 1990s band Nirvana), and what her father wanted from life, his band, and music. Here's the problem with that: Francis Bean was 2 years old when her father died. Unless she has an eidetic memory, she has no idea what her father wanted. She was simply too young to remember (not to mention that her father likely didn't discuss such weighty matters with a two-year old).

Everything she is saying in these interviews is secondhand at best. She is reiterating what her mother, Courtney Love, or what her dad's friends and band mates have told her over the years. And, while I believe each is trying to stay true to Kurt's memory and life, time changes our perceptions and memories. What they think "Kurt wanted" at the time is warped by their own lives lived since and changing memories. However, as has been proven with the various lawsuits since Kurt's death, Courtney, Kurt's band mates, and others had very different ideas about what Kurt wanted -- enough so that it led to those lawsuits over rights, money, credit, and other issues. Even taking a middle ground between all of what each says leaves you with a much different interpretation of the actual man than who he really was or who he might have been today had he not ended his life.

Francis Bean Cobain is a young woman coming into her own. She has a lot of life left to live, and a lot of decisions to make about herself and who she will become. We should not add her father's legacy onto her, nor should we ask her about it. She needs to make her own path in life and she doesn't need her dad's baggage added to her's. Let's leave that to the rock historians.