“Not many artists commit suicide by leaping off the pinnacle of success.” -Anonymous

New evidence surrounding Nirvana-front man Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide has surfaced. Many fans of the Seattle-based grunge band contend that the circumstances surrounding the singer's death were more than mysterious; his wife, Courtney Love, is a popular suspect for his murder. However, a "first draft" of Cobain's suicide note has been discovered among a cache of 1980's pop records auctioned off after his death.

An image of the letter, now confirmed by handwriting experts to be from Cobain, has been released to the press:
Van, 33, of Rogers City, MI, came across the note while moving out of his parents' basement. "They said with the economy how it is, they needed to rent out the basement to someone who would actually pay rent," Van said in an interview. "I was getting together all my Nirvana memorabilia - they're my favorite band! - when this piece of paper fell out of the sleeve of Kurt Cobain's copy of Culture Club's single 'Karma Chameleon.'"

It seems appropriate that Cobain would hide his first attempt at writing his suicide note amongst his collection of 1980's pop music. In the body, he explains his distress at discovering one of his band's biggest singles, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," was able to perfectly provide the instrumental backtrack to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." Now commonly known as "Rickrolling," it appears Kurt Cobain himself was the first to discover the horrors of being unpleasantly surprised by Rick Astley, tragically over his own music. Reading the body of the letter, Cobain could not recover from this terrible shock, and the resulting depression and existential crisis following drove him to take his own life.

The suicide note specifically mentions the act of Cobain killing himself. In the final version of the note found near Cobain's dead body, there is some ambiguity as to whether it was a letter to accompany his suicide, or whether it was a note to his wife and daughter telling them he was leaving. In the latter theory, many fans hold that Cobain was only going to walk out on his wife and daughter, in the hopes of giving them a better life, when Love murdered him and set it up to look like a suicide. With the discovery of this first draft of the note, this speculation will likely be put to rest.

Perhaps most ironic in this latest find is that, despite Cobain's distraught writing after realizing how "poppy" his songwriting had become, he took the time to make stylistic edits to his suicide note. In his notes, Cobain seems quite concerned with his image postmortem. He observes that his language could be more flowery in the opening paragraph, and that the tone of the entire piece should "sound darker, more depressed." The king of grunge rock, Devil-may-care attitude of the 1990's was just as concerned with the legacy of his life, death, and music, as any other sellout.

When asked if the suicide note had any effect on his respect for the singer, Van replied, "No, I don't think so. I mean, yeah, it's kind of gay that the dude liked Rick Astley, but, hey, I'm 33, just got kicked out my parents' basement, and still listen to Nirvana."