Five of Soundgarden's Best Chris Cornell Songs

Chris Cornell (1964-2017)

As the music world mourns the tragic loss of vocalist Chris Cornell, we can take solace in the fact his music will live on. While known for his work in Temple of the Dog, Audioslave and his solo career, Cornell will best be remembered as the vocalist for Soundgarden, a band he helped found in Seattle in 1984. To honour his talent, we look back at five of the best Soundgarden songs penned (words and music) solely by Cornell.

Ugly Truth (from Louder than Love)

The opener on their impressive Lounder Than Love album is a classic that speaks to exactly what Soundgarden is all about: heavy, downtuned guitar riffs, screaming vocals and pounding, precise drums. This song features a spectacular vocal performance from Cornell. Soundgarden opened with "Ugly Truth" in Detroit the night Cornell died.

Rusty Cage (from Badmotorfinger)

A popular and well-known song, "Rusty Cage" was penned by Cornell and it speaks to gaining one's freedom after a period of being restrained by perhaps a bad relationship. The song changes tempo in a very Black Sabbath way, giving it a sludgy, heavy feel midway through. It was famously covered by the late Johnny Cash, and Cornell even included a Cash-like acoustic rendering of it on his 2015 solo tour.

The Day I Tried to Live (from Superunknown)

A lyrically intense song with a soaring, emotional vocal from Cornell. "The Day I Tried to Live" was released as a single in 1994. It's an existential song about someone deciding to go out and change the world, but soon realizes it doesn't matter because we all end up dead, regardless of what we do in life.

Pretty Noose (From Down on the Upside)

A grinding, grungy song, "Pretty Noose" opens Soundgarden's stellar 1996 album Down on the Upside. With plenty of guitar layers and sounds, Cornell's voice carries the song, soaring above the instruments. He said "Pretty Noose" was about "an attractively packaged bad idea . . .something that seems great at first and then comes back to bite you." Ironically, Cornell died by hanging.

Burden in my Hand (From Down on the Upside)

The second single off Down on the Upside, "Burden in my Hand" has a happy feel to the music with a nice acoustic opening, that kicks into a classic Soundgarden dark anthem. Years after the album was released, Cornell related to ArtistDirect.com what the song had come to mean for him: "That was a song that really came from the guitar itself. It was mostly like the guitar was dictating what the lyrics should be and creating a mental image. The mental image was this sort of destitute guy. I guess he'd lost his cool if you want to put it that way. He's sort of coming to grips with what had happened and not necessarily feeling particularly emotional about it either way. He's trying to figure out how he would stand up and put one foot in front of the other—or not—and the song never really resolves any of that. It's just that moment of somebody sitting in the dirt. I had more moments like that after that song was written than I ever had before it was, so it means a lot more to me now than it did then."

Rest in Peace, Chris Cornell.

"Say Hello to Heaven"

An In-Depth Look at Soundgarden's Louder Than Love

While Nirvana became the poster band for the so-called grunge revolution, Soundgarden is the group that really first broke significant ground in Seattle.

And it was their sophomore album, Louder Than Love, that paved the way for the rest of the bands in Seattle in the late 1980s.

Louder Than Love, which was unleashed on the world on Sept. 5, 1989, was Soundgarden's first major-label release after 1988's Ultramega OK via indy label SST. In fact Soundgarden was the first Seattle "grunge" (I don't classify them as grunge) band to garner a major record deal, setting the ball rolling for the likes of Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, and Pearl Jam to follow suit.

When Louder Than Love first came out, the heavy, Black Sabbath-influenced tracks filled with doomy riffs and screaming vocals fell mostly on deaf ears, peaking at No. 108 on Billboard. But a video for "Hands All Over" would gain some valuable airplay on MTV and MuchMusic in Canada, exposing the band to some new fans.

For those at the time who got into the album, it was phenomenal.

Making Louder Than Love

In 1988: Cornell, Thayil, Yamamoto and Cameron

Singer Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and then-bassist Hiro Yamamoto took two months (December '88-January '89) to record the album at Seattle's London Bridge Studios, with producer Terry Date, who had worked with Metal Church and a few other bands before getting hired by Soundgarden.

When the band hit the studio, they had a clear goal in mind: To avoid any of the 1980s production techniques. Certainly Soundgarden wanted to stay away from that polished Def Leppard or Poison sound that was so popular back then. It got to the point where every lame band along Sunset Strip could get a good producer and throw out a record to capitalize on hard rock's popularity during that decade. In fact those hair bands were already on their way out, as music fans were turning to the likes of Jane's Addiction, Metallica, Guns N' Roses and Faith No More for music that was more raw and unrefined.

Even though Louder Than Love certainly had a natural, organic sound, Cornell stated in Raw magazine in 1991 that the record "was just a few degrees too produced and too clean, although I wouldn't want to change any of it."

With Yamamoto struggling to come up with ideas, while losing confidence is his ability to be creative (he did write the music for "Power Trip", "No Wrong, No Right" and "I Awake"), Cornell ended up handling most of the song writing and all the lyrics, except for "I Awake", the words of which were written by Yamamoto's girlfriend at the time, Kate McDonald on a note to the bass player.

"At the time Hiro had excommunicated himself from the band and there wasn't a free-flowing system as far as music went, so I ended up writing a lot of it," recalls Cornell in the Raw interview.

While the riffs are uber heavy with many tracks dropped into Drop D tuning, and Cornell's vocals powerfully carry the songs, an interesting aspect of Louder Than Loveare the unusual time signatures. "Get On the Snake" showcases 9/4 time, "Gun" mixes tempos beautifully, while "I Awake" boasts 4/4, 6/4, 11/8 and 14/8. It's a testament to Cameron's talent in the drummer's chair.

Interestingly, "Big Dumb Sex" is a major parody of the glam metal scene at the time, where 90% of the bands were singing about sex using all kinds of euphemisms. Given that, Cornell figured he'd write a song mocking that notion by spelling it out clear as a bell. Guns N' Roses would use it on their The Spaghetti Incident? album of cover songs, while Yamamoto hated the song.

While every song is good, the top tracks include "Loud Love" (great riff and vocal), "Gun" (heavy, heavy riff), "Ugly Truth" (Cornell at his best), "Hands All Over" (great melody and groove) and "Big Dumb Sex" (catchy melody and lyrics).

Soundgarden would go on to gain millions of fans with their next album Badmotorfinger in 1991, but it was Louder Than Love that showcased the power of the band before grunge became a household word.