Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337
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“No one sings like you anymore”
82. Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun
The facts:
Year: 1994.
Genre: Grunge.
Country: United States of America.
Album: Superunknown.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #584.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 1st.
Ranks higher than Fade Into You by Mazzy Star, but lower than Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: #499.
The people:
Lyrics by Chris Cornell.
Produced by Michael Beinhorn.
Vocals by Chris Cornell.
Lead guitar by Kim Thayil.
Rhythm guitar by Chris Cornell.
Bass by Ben Shepherd.
Drums by Matt Cameron.
The opinion:
It’s a coincidence that I should write about this song a month after the unexpected death of Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell. Many obituaries have been written about him since and I don’t want to write another one here. Still, much of the tributes have highlighted what a great and expressive singer Cornell was. Indeed. I want to open this entry of 6000 Songs with a final tribute from me in a the form of a lyric Cornell wrote for Black Hole Sun: “No one sings like you anymore.”
This song has quite some interesting lyrics, don’t they? Famously, Cornell himself admitted that he didn’t have a clue what any of them means. Most lyrics on Superunknown are rather clear, but Black Hole Sun is different. Cornell said he was just playing around with words. Perhaps, but did he notice that he was basically painting a sort of surrealist picture with them?
It’s been quite some time ago since I became aware of Black Hole Sun, but it where the lyrics as much as the music that drew me towards this song. No, they don’t make any literal sense to me and I doubt you could publish them in a poetry book. Still, I think they are magnificent. That’s because the lines on themselves are rather great. Just look at how powerful the following sentences are:
“In my eyes, indisposed/ In disguises no one knows/ Hides the face, lies the snake”
“Call my name through the cream/ And I'll hear you scream again”
“Times are gone for honest men/ And sometimes far too long for snakes”
“In my shoes, a walking sleep”
“Hang my head, drown my fear/ Till you all just disappear”
And of course:
“Black hole sun/ Won't you come/ And wash away the rain”
I don’t know about you, but in me they evoke a lot of emotions. I know there is a school of rock criticism that can’t do anything else but ridicule vague lyrics, but a song like this one can really show the beauty of abstraction (I admit, I’ve never heard the lyrics of Black Hole Sun in particular being criticized). There is a certain consistency in imagery and feeling here that I find very expressive. It gets to me.
In the end the lyrics illustrate how much Black Hole Sun is a mood piece. You might say that grunge was a moody genre, but it’s musical purpose was more visceral. It’s a genre that deals with emotions in a very direct way. Much of Soundgarden’s output was like that and surely most of the famous songs of grunge, like Smells Like Teen Spirit or Alive, are truly meant to make you feel on fire. Black Hole Sun on the other hand smoulders.
It would be wrong to describe Soundgarden as just a canvas for Cornell to paint on. It was very much a group with distinct members. Many of the interviews I read for this article gave the impression that at least lead guitar player Kim Thayil was as much responsible for many creative choices on the albums as Cornell. Still, Black Hole Sun was largely Cornell. Apparently he was initially so unsatisfied with Thayil’s work on this that he picked up the lead guitar himself and thought Thayil how to play his part. Cornell’s voice also can’t be denied: he always sings like he’s staring in a deep, dark pit and that’s very much required here.
Cornell also came with the idea to use a Leslie Speaker during recording and that proved to be a key ingredient of the final results. A Leslie Speaker is an old-fashioned amplifier-loudspeaker-combo that adds an effect that makes a sound go fast and slow in rapid rotation, comparable to a police siren. You can hear it here mostly in the verses: it gives the guitar parts their odd watery texture. This way Black Hole Sun becomes even more a mood piece than it already is.
Black Hole Sun was eventually put right in the middle of Superunknown, a deservedly classic album with many visceral and direct rock songs. This song doesn’t give it just some beautiful breathing space, but also ties it’s dark fabric together. It abstracts everything that comes before and after. Besides, it became the band’s biggest hit and signature song. It seems fitting in an odd way. Odd, because it isn’t the most typical example of the Soundgarden sound. Yet fitting, because it seems like an extract of the soul of one of the more ghoulish bands of the rock genre.
9/10
Other versions:
There are a lot of covers of Black Hole Sun. I kind of expected there to be, because the abstract qualities of the song make it easy for multiple musical interpretations. I don’t think I talked about a song before this one that had so many covers that don’t sound like the original at all. In fact, most of the interpretations you’ll find in the playlist below aren’t rock at all.
Instead, most artists think of it as a slow ballad. Chris Cornell did so too apparently. When he went solo he played it live frequently, but mostly acoustically. He even showed up to play guitar on Lyambiko’s awful cover of the song. Was he too nice?
There is no way I could talk about all the covers below. Most of them are rather solid, but mostly I don’t care. They are lacking. Is there no one besides Cornell who seemed to notice how dark these lines are? Where are the biting interpretations? Where is the anger, the exasperation, the despair? Why are almost all these versions pure melancholy. Sure, Black Hole Sun is a melancholy song, but I believe it is a classic because it is more than that. It can mean a variety of things to many people, I suspect. In fact, it means different things to me depending on my mood. Yet most of these endless list of singers can only come up with soft sadness. It becomes tiring after a while.
It beats a couple of outrageous happy takes though. That’s about the only mood I can’t get out of the original recording of Black Hole Sun: happiness. Still Paul Anka (yes, him) and Haley Reinhardt seem to think this a Sinatra style swinging song for lovers, in the vein of I’ve Got You Under My Skin. Apparently this isn’t as unusual as you might think. In 1994 already, Cornell expressed to Melody Maker his annoyance with fans that see Black Hole Sun as an upbeat song. I feel him.
There are a couple of other interpretations though. A choir take by Scala and Kolacny Brothers gives a nice ethereal sound to the song that works surprisingly well. Metal-band The Acacia Strain deserve at least some praise for actually noticing that this is a rock song, although I personally don’t like their take all that much. Peter Frampton has a live performance that turns it into a mostly completely instrumental workout for his electric guitar and it is very good. Empty Boat People do a fuzzy, Nine Inch Nails-style take that works somewhat. Break of Reality are one of many acts to make it a violin song, but they add some percussion that really adds something to it. Oddly successful is the obligatory baby version by a group with the interesting name Tunes for Baby That Won’t Drive You Crazy. No really, they exist. And if you make your way to the deeper parts of Spotify (or my playlist) you might find some covers that are more one-on-one copies of the original. Not that I think you’ll need them.
“Weird Al” Yankovic made Black Hole Sun part of his The Alernative Polka, another one of his polkafied medley’s of big hits. I kind of liked these things initially, but it has worn a bit thin for me by now.
The playlist:
