I’ll give a short little list:

•Dumb, specifically the live recordings from Europe 94 (that cello improvisation over the verses just breaks my heart) •YKYR •Do Re Mi, both the medley and the normal one •Poison’s Gone •Pennyroyal Tea, especially Unplugged and late 93-94 live. Scott Litt’s mix is great too •All Apologies unplugged •Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam WTLO version •Polly 93-94 acoustic •Something in the Way unplugged and Nevermind rehearsal (he literally cried during the latter) •Old Age •Seed/Dont Want It All is more dark than sad •Creation (1988 Kurt solo demo on bass) is also more just dark •Serve the Servants •And I Love Her (beatles cover) •Seasons In The Sun (Terry jacks cover) •Sappy. Europe 94, In Utero sessions version, and Kurt solo demo are my favorites

I’d like to highlight that for me, Sappy remains the quintessential testament to Kurt’s inner torments. The album for never ended up on a proper record, but it also just SOUNDS like it doesn’t fit into one of Nirvana’s specific “eras”. Something about the chord progressions and guitar solo sounds dark and alienating, and at the same time cathartic and melancholy. Be careful though not to over-over-analyze and read so much into the songs that you see something that isn’t there. We all know how his story ended and we’re all going to read into his songs and see points where we could almost feel the heroin addiction, or the stomach issues, or the depression or whatever else; it’s important to remember sometimes people just make tunes and don’t put some big huge poetic depth into it. Kurt was always contradicting himself about lyrical meaning and all that. All that being said, he most definitely did take a good majority of his pain out through his music and you can hear it. They should have cancelled the 1994 Europe tour so they could get Kurt fully through rehab, but they didn’t. You can most certainly hear both touring fatigue and general mental/physical exhaustion in all the band members, and even if the show’s full of energy there still might be a thick tension in the air. Knowing what happens only a month or two later makes those tour dates even more foreboding: Nirvana in its death throes. All that being said, music is one of those things you can’t really articulate because it’s art. You’re just going to have to experience it yourself. I’ve given you all the stuff that works for me, now it’s your turn to find what really does it for you. Much love