Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s relationship mirrors a Shakespearean tragedy. Their tumultuous love story may be remembered ending with a shotgun and death, but it started with love at first sight, and cough syrup.

They first locked eyes at a dimly lit nightclub in Portland in 1990, and were wrestling on the ground moments later.  Kurt was there for a Nirvana gig. Courtney was sitting in a booth at the same club. She came to the club with a friend who was dating a member of the opening band. A bit before Kurt was to perform, he walked passed Love. “You look like Dave Pirner,” Love jabbed at Cobain’s appearance. Kurt responded with a flirt of his own: grabbing Love by the arm, he wrestled her to the ground. All in jest. When he pulled her up, he gave her a Chim Chim (the monkey from ‘Speed Racer’) sticker. Nothing else happened that evening, Love left before Kurt could make another move after the gig.

Courtney followed Kurt and Nirvana’s rise in the music scene from a distance. When she found out Kurt had broken up with his girlfriend, she sent him a heart-shaped box filled with a tiny porcelain doll, three dried roses, a miniature teacup and seashells. The two met for a second time in 1991 backstage at a concert. Kurt was busy drinking cough syrup when Love ran into him. She started the conversation by showing him her own more powerful brand of cough syrup in her purse. They talked shop and exchanged numbers.

Kurt called Love later that night. They spent an hour on the phone, flirting and talking about cough syrup preferences, among other things. Kurt described the conversation to his friend Ian Dickson later, starting with “I’ve met the coolest girl in the whole world.”

To read more about Kurt and Courtney’s first meetings, click here.

[ Source : TheDailyBeast ]