In 1991, people around my age found ourselves very unexpectedly in a new karmic relationship. What was left of heavy metal died in the first few bars of a song called “Smells like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana; obsession ensued and like most obsessions it wasn’t healthy. In just three years, Kurt Cobain was dead by suicide, teenagers were openly weeping in the halls of my high school and our school newspaper carried his obituary. It was the only one published while I was there. What the hell happened? It has always been a riddle.
Now is time, almost 30 years later, to solve that riddle and it all starts with the first public debut of the song. It was played on April 17, 1991 in Seattle, Washington at OK Hotel, which was a music venue. With no available time, I placed the time at 9:56 pm placing Scorpio Pluto on the ascendant and this also puts the Aries Sun in the 5th house (playgrounds including performance venues).
So Let’s Solve the Riddle
The magic of this song is its play with Aquarian themes (revolution, riot, awakening, the audience, groups, individuation, receiving love, flying your freak flag). The song has a Scorpio Ascendant and this zodiac sign is about the depths, psychological security, sex, death, obsession, treasures from the deep and secrets. Normally, Scorpio blocks Aquarius as they are both fixed signs and square each other. Yet, Nirvana’s song is about exploring the depths of Aquarius. There are two astrological houses to examine in detail. The 3rd house is the school and the 7th has Gemini within it and this is also the school. The 7th house has a Gemini Venus (schoolgirls, the cheerleaders), Gemini Vesta (sacred fire) and Gemini Moon (breasts), all female goddesses that show up in the video. The cheerleaders (6° Gemini Venus, sabian symbol “workmen drilling for oil”) are trine the 6° Aquarius Saturn in the 3rd and square the 6° Virgo Pallas (“a merry-go-round”) in the 10th. This is the astrological picture of Scorpio’s mining of Aquarius. The janitor is the engine, the cheerleaders are the work crew and the ritual performance is the drill bit.
The video of the song starts by showing teenagers in a high school going through a ritualized Pep Rally cheer-leading routine. This is a picture of the 6° Aquarius Saturn ,whose sabian symbol is a “masked figure performing ritualistic acts in a mystery play”. The audience can be seen and shows subdued individuality but the cheerleaders’ individual features aren’t seen. Kurt Cobain is singing in a monotonous chant and represents Aquarius throughout the song. The 3rd house has Capricorn on the cusp, an Aquarius Saturn, intercepted Aquarius and Pisces. This orientation means Aquarius energy is restricted. First, Capricorn and Pisces are sitting in the door seats and Aquarius is in the middle seat and he can’t get out. What makes matters worse is that Saturn (restriction, discipline, time, maturity) is sitting on his lap. Restriction (Saturn) of underlying riotous, wild energy (Aquarius) in a high school (3rd) sets the stage for what happens next: there is an older man (Saturn) who is a janitor (Virgo) that begins to operate the mop like a metronome (Virgo Pallas conjunct Midheaven in the 10th, Saturn’s house). The janitor is in control of Saturn and he begins to change the music and the cheerleaders’ performance starts to unleash the audience’s reaction.
The cheerleaders drill into the oil of Aquarius and a fire (Gemini Vesta) is seen. A single cheerleader with her head back and breasts forward gyrates (Gemini Moon) in the shadows. Soon thereafter, the cheerleaders hit pay dirt and the audience turns into a mosh pit. The cheerleaders’ anarchy sign is fully seen. Aquarius is fully unleashed and floods through the music (Pisces) band. “Hello, hello, hello, how low”. How low do we have to go to wake you up?
The Effect
A good song. For me, I heard it first. It was disorienting. In my junior year of college seven years later, I was just about to walk through the Eggleston Hall breezeway with my friend when I was grabbed from behind. I had heard nothing and as I turned I was staring not four inches into the face of the Virginia Tech Hokie Bird – snood and all. He had been skating down from Owens and he ran into me. As soon as he was there, he skated off. Disorienting, surprise, odd, relief, a bit exciting, I started laughing before I even knew how I felt. That was my reaction to hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the first time.
My friend Holly called me. This is about how the conversation went:
Holly: "DID YOU..." Me: "Yes, I know. Who..." Holly: "No, radio" Me: "If you hear, Mom said she will take us to Richmond" Holly: "It might already be sold out" Me: "It might not be there yet." Holly: (rattling)..."I've got a tape to record it."
I don’t know if we went that day but I think we did. All I know is when Holly and I got to the Chesterfield Town Center Mall we went straight to the music store and we already knew what we were looking for. We had a plan – she was going straight for it but I would go down the aisle beside in case someone was in her way. Holly went down the aisle with “N’s” while some kids were trying to figure out the name of the band. I went down the next aisle and rounded the end and she already had two CD copies in her hand. I think there was one or two left. My mom was catching up to us as we were in line to buy them. They put them in clear, plastic bags. Holly folded hers and stuffed it under her black metal t-shirt because she was worried someone might try and take it. That surprised me, it was good but I wasn’t worried.
It is a song about a guy who feels like a freak, who gets excited by a bored girl, seems to have a little personal trouble, flies his freak flag and is ultimately rejected which leaves him feeling a little violent.
In a mashup of the words of the song, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous, I feel stupid and contagious, she’s over bored and self assured, I found it hard, it’s hard to find, oh well, whatever, never mind, a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, a denial, a denial, a denial, a denial…”
Kurt Cobain had a lot of Pisces and they aren’t linear – you have to grasp the threads to understand them. Sorry for the unpleasant image but they tend to vomit up their lunch, you have to use your imagination to reconstruct what it was.
America’s Reaction
Astrologically, America is the strong, friendly type with a hint of Cancer bashfulness in a Sagittarius wrapping. Sagittarius is bigger than life, it can make for a real dichotomy. I use the Sibly Chart for America. We aren’t sabre rattlers; instead we are easygoing, tapping emotionally into all that air energy: Aquarius Moon in the 3rd and Cancer Sun in the 7th – then something triggers us and we become an explosive arrow- wielding charging centaur. It’s all “kick the tires and light the fires”. That’s what “Smells Like Teen Spirit” tapped into. America’s Cancer Sun found its natural partner, Capricorn Uranus, in this song. It also saw in the song something it couldn’t reach – and that is what triggered the obsession.
The song’s Capricorn Uranus felt freeing, this was breaking up (Uranus) too much restriction (Capricorn). It was feeling free. America also has an Aquarius Moon in the 3rd house. The video, if not the song lyrics, was completely understandable to the American people. The public liked the song. Moons are about needs, feelings and being fed. Feeling free is mother’s milk to an Aquarian Moon.
And then there was the karmic aspect. America’s Pluto is square Teen Spirit’s Sun. America’s 27° Capricorn Pluto is “pilgrims climbing the steep steps leading to a mountain shrine”. Our Pluto is not a pioneer – he is a disciplined traveler determined to trod the set paths. On his own, he doesn’t off-road. He rules the dead and death. To understand him, consider the pandemic economy: you see him active in destroying retail companies. Why? Their business models are dead and this makes him their ruler. He separates the living pieces that are not his and takes away the dead parts. That is why he gets credit for healing and regeneration.
Our Pluto was steady climbing the mountain when out of the corner of his eye he caught a bright light, it intrigued him, so he walked as far to the edge as he could. There seemed to be something dead there. The song’s 27° Aries Sun is “through imagination a lost opportunity is regained”. This is about failing forward. If you look into the history of this song, it almost didn’t make it. Kurt Cobain couldn’t get his band to like it. The band members finally started changing things and they resuscitated it. Through the band mates’ imagination the song was retrieved.
Pluto advanced into some loose gravel but he wanted a better look so he went further. He came to a chasm that blocked him and he only rules the dead so he stopped and stared. Creepy, obsessed Pluto.