For My Sunday Song #336, we are going to examine the song “Show Me How To Live” by Audioslave. The song is off their 2002 debut, self-titled album. The song went to #2 on the Mainstream Rock Chart and actually made the Billboard Hot 100 landing at #67. The song is credited to Brad Wilk, Chris Cornell, Tim Commerford and Tom Morello.
The song has a ton of religious references and I think it deals with the struggles the singer is going through. God created him, but now he doesn’t know how to live and is full of guilt and wants his creator to show him how to live. The lines about him not sleeping and needing a priest to help him leads me to thing there is a lot of guilt that he needs to confess. With the lines “nail in my head/from my creator” makes me believes he feels he is being crucified. It is a really dark song and there is a lot of pain there that needs to be eased.
The song itself is pretty damn heavy with some killer riffs by Tom Morello and a solo that sounds so insane. He accomplishes those sounds by using a phasing, fluttering effect which he achieves by using a combination of tremolo picking the high E-string, using his trademark Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal and a ring modulator effect (thanks wiki for that info). And listen to the bass and the drums on this one as well. So powerful and so freakin’ dirty and groovy. Cornell’s vocals are freaking sick and you can feel the pain from those lyrics. At the very end of the song he has a cool effect on his voice that he gets by taking his hand and hitting his throat which changes the pitch. No tech for him, just good old fashion self harm.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 