Neil Young has revealed that discovering that Kurt Cobain’s suicide note contained a reference to one of his lyrics “fucked” with him.

Former Nirvana frontman Cobain took his own life in 1994 and, in the final letter he left to his fans, friends and family, reprinted the phrase “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” from Young’s track ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)’.

Writing in his new autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, Young admitted that reading the missive had left him scarred, writing:

When he died and left that note, it struck a deep chord inside of me. It fucked with me.


The singer also revealed that he had tried to get in touch with Cobain before his death in an attempt to help him conquer his problems, adding: “I, coincidentally, had been trying to reach him. I wanted to talk to him. Tell him only to play when he felt like it.”

Earlier this month, Young revealed that he quit booze and drugs one year ago in order to write his memoir. Discussing his decision to give up drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana in order to write his memoir, he said: “I did it for 40 years. Now I want to see what it’s like to not do it. It’s just a different perspective.”

Neil Young And Crazy Horse release their second album of this year, ‘Psychedelic Pill’, on October 29. The album follows June’s covers LP ‘Americana’. ‘Psychedelic Pill’ is Young’s first album of all new material with Crazy Horse since 2003.

This month, meanwhile, Nirvana’s seminal album ‘Nevermind’ turned 21. The LP, which took grunge from the undeground into the mainstream and turned Nirvana into one of the biggest bands in the world, was released in 1991 – to share your memories and favourite moments from the record with fellow NME.COM users, click here.