Heart-Shaped Box

I know this has undoubtedly been pointed out before, but with a a listing of 500+ comments, it's obviously not even feasible to read through them all-- but rather than point out my interpretation, I'll point out some facts and you can take them to help shape your own opinion/interpretation of this song as well as all of their others...

"Pisces" is a recurring theme/idea with Kurt Cobain, from interviews, to examples like this, in-song... even in his suicide note, he refers to himself as the "sad Pisces, Jesus man" (paraphrased).

I suppose not everyone knows the correlation or importance of this astrology sign, especially in regards to how fitting it is of Kurt.

Pisces, as an astrological sign, looks like this )-( roughly. It is said to be symbolic of duality or dichotomy; struggle between opposite forces, not unlike a yin-yang... especially in man and nature. It is two opposite facing half circles with a line binding them together. Also, in astrology, is a personality that stereotypically has trouble separating the good from the bad (and vice versa) in people/life/the world.

Those two facts, alone are very profound in considering Kurt as known bipolar (mania/depression), his views on humanity (he was both intensely loving and overly caring and sensitive, while at the same time, he freely admits to others and even in his suicide note, that he had developed a "hatred for people in general").

Without being redundant about this fact, I am constantly referring to his suicide note, known personality and what he and others have said of his views--

He blames this hatred and misanthropy on the fact that people who are kind and trusting, empathetic are so quickly and easily taken advantage of by "bad people", really... his opposite. He expresses that he was terrified in having to witness his infant daughter (at the time) so innocent and naive and trusting in a world that was so ugly and self-interested. People "mistook his kindness for weakness" so to speak and maybe his kindness was his weakness... and to me makes his death all the more tragic-- it's tough to see good people go out of this world in such an untimely and unfortunate way... because of the metaphorical demons that they faced, both internal and external.

Point I'm getting at is everything about Kurt's life from his mental illness to his views on humanity and everything in between was so polarized. I would say he was a classic borderline personality case as well, in all that I know... one signature trait of which was inability to see "middle ground"; they see things as "black or white" with no grey in between. Things are fully good or fully bad, etc. This is fundamentally different from "bipolar disorder", as one is physiological based, organic dysfunction, while the other is a disorder of the personality, developed usually through life experiences, etc... to say, bipolar disorder would be more "nature" and borderline personality disorder would be more "nurture" for you psychology types. And what better subject to study for someone interested in psychology than Kurt, huh? We all love him but we can all also agree he had a great deal of mental illness and psychological abnormality. A fascinating person.

There's a second major point that I have... and Kurt mentions this in one of his most famous interviews, for one-- that he has always had a fascination, bordering on obsession with anatomy and especially with reproduction (and reproductive organs) and babies-- the whole concept of male vs. female and them combining to form something that was "50% of each of the individual persons".

This can be seen all across the scope of his work. Just to skim the surface of their most well-known works:

The cover of Nevermind = a naked baby Nevermind's, constant references with lyrics like "spring is here again, reproductive glands", "nature is a whore"; "one baby to another says"; "breed"... and that's just very cursory in pointing out a few on that album.

Then a release named "Hormoaning"...

Incesticide (sexual connotation)... which also brings up a third interesting observation of Kurt-- his support of feminism and even his own struggles with gender identity... "she should have been a son" and how he talked about how he considered at one point if he might be gay (though he decided he wasn't)... that's a whole new can of worms you can open.

The cover of (and title) of In Utero... an anatomical model of a pregnant female and again, the references scattered throughout this song, alone-- babies, hymen, umbilical noose...

None of those things I pointed out are expressly regarding this song, itself, but their works in general. And I don't mean to say that these sexual/baby/reproduction references are literal in meaning in the songs, obviously-- I'm merely pointing out the clear pattern and obsessive quality of Kurt around gender/sex/reproduction, as well as how everything seemingly had a dichotomy and bipolar type element to it-- to me it's totally fascinating and I just have come across these same parallels that probably any solid Nirvana fan already has, I'm sure.

But maybe some of you haven't, and that's why I posted this. Hopefully some readers learned something new that they can go out and explore further. I could go on and on all day about aspects of him and the band's legacy, but I'll spare you all. Kurt, to me, was just a completely and endlessly fascinating person that we all can relate to-- which is one of the few things that made him such a legend and icon to so many!