Having children myself has really made me meditate on what exactly Christ meant that we must “be as little children” if we are to inherit the kingdom of God. Little children in real life are, after all, neither meek, submissive, nor humble, but quite the opposite: they are loud, stubborn, boundary pushers, impulsive, uninhibited, passionate, imaginative, emotive, without pretense and without guile.

We are fond of the joke that when folks ask “What would Jesus do?” that such includes flipping over tables angrily; so, too, when this same Christ insists we will in no wise inherit the Kingdom of God unless we “become as little children,” then that means we, too, must be loud, stubborn, boundary pushers, impulsive, uninhibited, passionate, imaginative, emotive, without pretense and without guile.

And repetitive. So very, very repetitive. My toddlers right now are unabashedly, unapologetically, repetitive. They excitedly yell out “Bus!” at every single bus we pass by one the road. They do the same whenever they spy a truck, or a boat, or a bird. Each new bus or truck or boat or bird is as exhilarating for them as the first one. As Maslow once said of the “self-actualized” so-called, every last sunset for them is as beautiful as the first one. There is no jadedness, no cynicism, no world-weariness–only an endless, eternal, inexhaustible sense of beauty, bound in an endless, eternal, inexhaustible repetition, worlds without end.

Perhaps not-coincidentally, this is also the logic of Pop music: repetitive beats, riffs, sing-along choruses, a minimum of chord changes. That is because the simplicity of Pop in general has always been a feature, not a bug; it appeals to teens and 20-somethings because they are trying to recover a childlike sense of simplistic wonder that they have only recently lost, and are still desperately trying to recapture before it’s too late. (Such may be why so few adults keep up with new music past the age of 30). Lou Reed famously once said, “One chord is good, two chords is pushing it, three chords you’re playing Jazz.” When it was recently revealed that Taylor Swift has used only one particular chord progression at least 21 times in her songs, my initial response wasn’t “that many?” but “that few?”

Note that every time Pop music starts veering into complexity, there is a child-like rebellion against it into something intentionally simplistic: when Jazz ossified into Big Band Swing, it was swiftly followed by BeBop, Chuck Berry and Rock ‘n Roll. When Rock in turn began to bloat into Prog and extended guitar solos, it was swiftly followed by Punk, Hip-Hop, and EDM. When Metal became saturated with hairspray and spandex, it was promptly followed by Grunge. Pop is constantly having to clear the brush and push back the undergrowth.

This has been a round-about way of exploring the question of why Gen Zers are absolutely enthralled with Nirvana–a famous brush-burning band that abruptly ended years before any of them were even born. College kids these days not only sport Nirvana shirts, but actually still listen to the music (I’ve graded their papers and talked with them during office hours, trust me on this).

Now, teens romanticizing long dead bands is of course nothing new; when I was a kid in the ’90s, we all loved the Beatles, by way of comparison. We are now almost as far away from Cobain’s suicide as my high school graduation was from the Beatles’ break-up. We appear to always be on a 20-30 year delay of which older bands we revere.

Yet having been a ’90s child myself, I’m more curious as to they question of why Gen Zers love Nirvana in particular. Why not, say, Pearl Jam, or Smashing Pumpkins, or Soundgarden, or any of the other mainstays of early-’90s Alternative? They were all just as moody, just as angry, just as depressing–and certainly Gen Zers have even more reasons to be moody and angry and depressed as Gen Xers did (e.g. global warming, tuition outpacing inflation, social media, housing prices, etc. and etc.).

But then, of all those bands, only Kurt Cobain actually killed himself at the height of his powers. Although intellectually we know better than to romanticize suicide, deep down in our guts, part of us still respects it, don’t we. Dying young means you never grow old; Kurt Cobain will always be encased in amber, forever 27, never to become old or boring. “I hope I die before I get old,” The Who once sang, but then promptly did just that; Cobain actually followed through with the sentiment.

There’s also the fact that, well, (to get back to the point that I started this essay with), Nirvana songs are just so much simpler. From like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to “Polly” to “Sliver” to “Heart-Shaped Box” to “All Apologies” and everything else in between, Nirvana songs are proudly, defiantly, strictly four-chord Punk.

Even Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Soundgarden all had pretensions towards virtuosity and mastery in their music; Nirvana, while always competent (go listen to From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah if ye doubt the claim), never made their music more important than the sentiment behind it. Cobain never attempted the soaring vocals of Chris Cornell or Eddie Vedder, nor the guitar heroics of Billie Corgan or Kim Thayil; his solos were only ever a repetition of the melody. But again, that repetition, that very lack of virtuosity and mastery, was always a feature, not a bug.

And now there is a whole new generation of children coming-of-age, angry and angst-ridden, looking at the current condition of the world, and with little patience for those who make their virtuosity and mastery more important than their message. No wonder they are leaving the Churches! But it’s not because they are no longer spiritual, or no longer yearning for the transcendent, no–it is because the Churches have long made themselves more important than the message.

As inevitably happens. Just as Pop-music inevitably leans towards bloat till the next musical revolution burns it down (the most recent of which was mid-2000s Indie, so I suspect we’re due for another), so too does religion inevitably lean towards bloat, till the next Reformation and/or Restoration brings it back to basics. Indeed, the constant cycle of apostasies and restorations are key component of LDS theology.

I bring this all up because Youth Retention is an obvious pre-occupation coming out of Salt Lake. Far be it from me to offer to “steady the ark” by offering suggestions or whatever; but the prominence of Nirvana shirts on campus these days has got me thinking lately that what the Youth of Zion–or just the Youth of today more generally–are yearning for more than anything isn’t more programs and firesides or pronouncements or what have you, but simply a more childlike sense of the world. They are young enough to still remember what being a child was like, while most the rest of us have forgotten.

Making the world wondrous again was the initial genius of Joseph Smith, I dare say. Suddenly, there were endless Gods populating infinity, in endless repetition, world without end! It was a much more expansive vision of the cosmos. This vision is not replicated by Sunday School manuals and seminary classes and building projects. I’m not claiming to know the answer; Cobain didn’t either, he merely expressed the problem. His only solution was to leave this world entirely. Most our kids are not leaving quite as violently and completely as he did (though a distressing number still are), but they are leaving in other ways.

The irony is that we should be leaving the world as well! Flee Babylon and Come to Zion used to be songs we meant quite literally. Now we tend to treat them more as metaphors, but the kids aren’t convinced anymore. So many of the rising generation really do desire to leave this wicked world behind; that means we must be willing to leave it behind too, as the Savior admonished us–and no, simply not drinking tea and coffee or not watching R-rated movies isn’t enough. It never was. We have far too many businessmen in our ranks, folks who think they can serve both God and Mammon. Burn it all down, clear the underbrush, bring it back to basics. We’re overdue anyways as well and as all those Nirvana shirts on campus attest, the yearning is real.