Tag: Superunknown

My Sunday Song – “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic12 Comments

For the last My Sunday Song #350 for the Chris Cornell 10 song set is “Black Hole Sun” by his band Soundgarden. The song is off their 1994 album Superunknown and went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart in the U.S. The song has so many accolades including one of the Top 500 Songs of all time landing at #368. It didn’t go Gold in the U.S., but did in the UK, Australia and Italy. It is one of their most recognizable and amazing songs and was written by Chris Cornell.

The song was written by Chris mostly on a drive from the studio in Woodinville to Seattle which was about a 34-40 minute drive. Once he got home, he whistled it in to a dictaphone. The next more he got and wallah, a new song. The song was inspired by a story on the news, Chris doesn’t remember the story itself just the words Black Hole Sun which he thought would be a great title to the song. When he wrote the lyrics in about 15 minutes, there was no meaning, per se, behind them, basically it was him putting words together that painted this dark picture. From reading the lyrics, it sort of looks like a song about disillusionment and how the world has grown so dark and mean that no more honest men exist as everyone is eventually turned to the dark side.

Musically, the song is just as dark sounding at times with a grunge sound, but also a little psychedelic with a slight Beatles vibe to it. The chorus feels a little upbeat and a little sunnier, but when that chorus comes in it feels like a menacing dark sludge. Kim Thayil’s guitar tone on this is perfect for the song as it has some really cool moments with that solo lying under the grungy riff really plays nicely off each other. Cornell’s vocals on the chorus seem monotonous at times as they are trudging through the sludge of the music. His backing vocals are higher pitched and really give the song something a little extra. I was immediately engrossed in this song the first time I heard as there is so much going on. It is simply wonderful.

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My Sunday Song – “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic15 Comments

For My Sunday Song #104, we are covering one of the great songs to come out of the Grunge Era, “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden.  The song was all over the radio although it never broke the Top 40.  It did reach #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks.  The song was featured on the band’s fourth album ‘Superunknown’ back in 1994.

The grunge era was permeated with depressing songs and this was no exception; however, there was something more to it.  Whether it was the songwriting, the vocals, or the music itself, Soundgarden was different than the other bands.  They had talent, they had musicianship and they had one of the greatest vocalist at the time with Chris Cornell.  I never got into grunge, but Soundgarden was one of the very few bands I got into because of the songs.

“Black Hole Sun” was juxtaposed with the darkness of a black hole and the brightness of the sun…at least in the title.  It had this really beautiful chorus, but what the song was really about I had no idea.  The words didn’t really make sense (see the lyrics below); however, they sounded great together.  The song is really sad and dark although at times the song doesn’t sound that way.  It all just kinda worked.

Chris was asked about the song after it became a hit and he said this…( SOUNDGARDEN: PAINTING BEAUTIFUL PICTURES by Jennifer Clay)

“It’s funny because hits are usually sort of congruent, sort of an identifiable lyric idea, and that song pretty much had none. The chorus lyric is kind of beautiful and easy to remember. Other than that, I sure didn’t have an understanding of it after I wrote it. I was just sucked in by the music and I was painting a picture with the lyrics. There was no real idea to get across.”

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