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5. Kathleen Hanna writes 'Kurt smells like teen spirit' on Cobain’s apartment wall
The definitive rock tune of the decade began, now famously, as graffiti. On an August 1990 afternoon in Olympia, Wash., Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna found herself in the woods with a bottle of Canadian Club and pair of binoculars, serving as a lookout for Kurt Cobain while he spray-painted “God is gay” in six-foot-tall red letters on a “right-wing” pregnancy center across the street. After that, Cobain and Hanna polished off the Canadian Club and some 40-ounce beers. They ended up at Cobain’s apartment. Hanna took out a Sharpie marker and wrote “Kurt smells like teen spirit” on the wall (a jab at Cobain’s then-girlfriend and, apparently, her deodorant of choice, Teen Spirit). Hanna woke up the next day with a blackout-spiced hangover, not knowing she’d planted the seed for a pretty decent song.
