There is no better way to remember a talent who has passed than through celebrating their work. On what would have been Chris Cornell's 60th birthday we have an embarrassment of musical riches to reflect on, but it's clear that some of his most fascinating songwriting and playing took place outside of his album discography with Soundgarden, Audioslave and solo career.
"Some of my favorite Chris songs are B-sides," Cornell's Soundgarden bandmate and drummer Matt Cameron reflected to Spin back in 2021. “She Likes Surprises, She’s a Politician, Cold Bitch. Some of his best songs are B-sides and those are amazing songs. Fresh Deadly Roses is another incredible B-side that never made the cut. Those are good problems to have. If you have too many good songs, I guess you’re going to have to throw a couple to the B-side pile."
So let's dig through the legacy of Chris Cornell's career and remember one of the greats.
Sunshower
Cornell's passing gave some of his most beautiful songs a while new poignancy, and to begin with, Sunshower sounds like the almost hopeful, wistful sister to his earlier composition Season's dark resignation. The phrasing reflects a Seattle musician who was just at home in the classic songbooks of Paul McCartney and Cat Stevens as he was punk rock.
Sunflower was included on the soundtrack to the 1998 film Great Expectations and marked the beginning of the fascinating collaboration between Cornell, Alain Johannes and his late wife Natasha Shneider of the band Eleven. It would go on to yield the songwriter's first post-Soundgarden album Euphoria Mourning (originally released as Euphoria Morning in 1999).
I would often listen to really dark music, and if I was in a very dark period of my life, it made me feel happy
The experience of making music together was hugely positive for the trio, yet Sunshower and the album that followed are marked by Cornell's relatably melancholic lyricism that continues to be a source of attraction for many listeners. "If you’re writing about a subject that’s depressing or melancholy, ultimately it’s going to speak to someone who is in that environment who feels lonely, and they rise up because of it," he reflected to Alternative Press after the release of Euphoria Mourning. "I would always sit in my bedroom and listen to music by myself. That was my favorite thing to do. I would often listen to really dark music, and if I was in a very dark period of my life, it made me feel happy."
While Cornell is credited as guitarist on Sunshower, the multi-talented Johannes and Schenider play flamenco guitar and bass respectively. It doesn't just showcase their chemistry but also a reminder of Cornell's inventive approach as a guitarist. The outro here deserves a special mention; perfectly pitched between adding majestic light shadowed in sadness, it feels like Cornell is still pulling on our heartstrings.
Cold Bitch
Alongside fellow non-studio album Soundgarden song Birth Ritual and Ultramega OK's Beyond The Wheel, Badmotorfinger outtake Cold Bitch demonstrates just how high a register of Cornell's voice could reach. But all three also prove a reminder of just how originally off-kilter Soundgarden's take on metallic heaviness could be.
Like the excellent Blind Dogs (more on that later), there's also a lesser-known recording of Cold Bitch to be found amongst Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger outtakes that I've included above from the 30th anniversary reissue of the album – Cornell 's voice hits harder on this and there are some trippier musical sections to give it more form.
A co-write between the singer, Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron (but credited to Cornell by Cameron), the slow grind of Thayil's huge slab of a riff underpins Cornell's haunting paean to an icy muse like Sabbath diving further down the spiral. On their blackest days, Soundgarden were easily the heaviest of the Seattle giants.
I think that would’ve catapulted that record to another level immediately
Ben Shepherd
"For some reason, Kim and Chris didn’t want Cold Bitch," bassist Ben Shepherd recalled to Spin for its 30th anniversary piece on Badmotorfinger. "But when we tracked that, man. That was a fucking heavy day. We were there at Bear Creek [Studios], me, Kim, Chris. I don’t think Matt had gotten there yet. The power went out as the cellos were playing. A lightning strike hit the lawn outside and put the power out as they were tracking. It was so fucking heavy. It was like, “That is the mojo song of the whole record, man.” That would’ve… I think that would’ve catapulted that record to another level immediately."
Cameron echoed his love for the song, though its writer Cornell didn't seem to share it. "Cold Bitch is one of my favorite Soundgarden songs of all time. I was just crushed that it didn’t make the cut. It was Chris’s call. I remember we were at a Denny’s and when we were mixing the album in Tarzana or something. We were like, “Okay, what’s our sequence for the album?” We all figured out a sequence, and then Chris vetoed Cold Bitch. He wrote the song, so he had veto power on that one. I was just like, 'Aw'. He said it didn’t groove. I’m just like, that’s the grooviest! It’s a weird groove, super weird. He didn’t like the vocals…He just didn’t hear it. To this day, I’m just like, 'Ugh, that should’ve made the cut.'
Seasons
Cornell's contribution to the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's film Singles – that he also cameoed in alongside members of Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains – this might just be his greatest-ever solo song.
It came during a period when the songwriter was coming into his own creatively, both inside of Soundgarden and beyond.
"One thing I really noticed with Chris, in particular, is, when he and Andy were living together at Chris’s house on Capitol Hill, he was recording a lot on his four-track cassette recorder," remembered Crowe to Spin. "He wasn’t recording just hard rock Soundgarden-type songs, he was really trying to stretch out as a songwriter."
There had already been abundant evidence of this with the Temple Of The Dog project, but Crowe noted Cornell was exploring acoustic-based writing, and out of this furtive period came the Poncier demo.
Its genesis seems so fantastical it could only come from a remarkable songwriter hitting his stride. Named after Matt Damon's hapless musician character Cliff Poncier in Singles (a part Cornell was originally earmarked for), the musician wrote an EP for Poncier's fictional solo debut, but with real songs that included at least two future classics.
Alongside Seasons there's future Soundgarden classic Spoonman, Flutter Girl (that would be reworked for Epuphoria Mourning), b-side Nowhere But You (that would find a home as a b-side) and Missing – a proper obscure gem Temple Of The Dog performed on their reunion tour in 2016.
"I couldn’t believe how fully realised it was, and how different it was," marvelled Cameron. "How elegant. I loved all the songs, but Seasons, stood out from the first listen with that Zeppelin, open-tuning vibe. It was like, holy crap! It was the best thing I’d heard in a really long time."
"It was a facet of Chris that I wanted to use; this rich vein of Chris’s solo impulses," added Cameron. "Stuff that’s not particularly Soundgarden, but very personal and him. It quickly went from mind-blown, to how can we make this part of the sound of the movie?"
Seasons would also be included in a very different film; 2013 Superman blockbuster Man Of Steel, but it still resonates far beyond the silver screen.
We Got The Whip
There are still outtakes from Audioslave's time together yet to surface, according to Tom Morello, but away from their three albums there's treasures waiting to be heard. The funky Give is well worth a listen but Cochise b-side We Got The Whip proves an interesting exception to the idea that Cornell wouldn't carry on the politically-fired lyrics of Rage Against The Machine when he teamed up with 3/4 of that band in 2001.
The riff is undeniably Morello, typical of the purple patch he was in for Audioslave's prolific start when they wrote 16 songs together in three weeks. Lyrically We Got The Whip is quite different from some of the more personal subject matter on Audioslave's debut but its politicism is still fairly open-ended and it suggests the idea of a country's dominance on the world stage through superior firepower: 'We got the better bomb'.
Is Cornell referring to the US? He never said but he would become much more openly vitriolic when scathingly calling out his government's response to Hurricane Katrina on Wide Awake from Audioslave's third and final album Revelations.
Wrong Side
Cornell's final solo album Higher Truth in 2015 showed he was still exploring new ways to express his craft. This outtake from the main album is a case in point; a tragic Western theme and narrative more at home in the world of country gets a Cornellian treatment with a Morricone-esque guitar break.
Wrong Side's feel recalls the album's Through The Window where Cornell sounds both familiarly intimate but with a new cinematic scope under the production ear of Brendan O'Brien. It was the sound of an artist becoming classic in the next stage of a career with still so much to offer. And learn.
“Whether it's something like Going To California or a Nick Drake song – I worked back and learned a bunch of Nick Drake songs," Cornell told MusicRadar of his guitar prep for Higher Truth. "I went back and learned some Beatles songs where there are different ways that Paul McCartney or John Lennon would pick through songs, and just got into a bunch of different approaches to it, so that I had more bullets in the gun when I sat down with an acoustic guitar and tried to write a song."
I had to reach out a little more into the history of songwriting and guitar players and actually learn some stuff!
“I ended up going way past what I needed to, to get what I wanted done," added Cornell. "But it was good, because it's a big leap forward in terms of understanding the instrument," he added. "My approach to guitar has always been, 'I don't want to know anything; I don't want to learn anything from anybody else. I just want to make it sound in ways that I think are cool, and if I do that, then there's always gonna be some degree of personal stamp on whatever that song is.' I had to reach out a little more into the history of songwriting and guitar players and actually learn some stuff!”
Kristi
Soundgarden's 1996 opus Down On The Upside was not a short album, but its b-sides and outtakes Bleed Together, Kristi and Karaoke could have easily have made the cut on quality. While Bleed Together is the upbeat punk rock Cornell could confidently turn his writing hand to, and Karaoke is oddly catchy, Kristi nods back to the band's early days in all the best ways.
Kristi grinds doomily and stutters in an odd-metered way that's unmistakably Soundgarden and extremely difficult to imitate. It finally saw the light on rarities and b-sides collection Echoes Of Miles in 2014, and fans could enjoy Matt Cameron's vicious snare (it was one of the drummer's favourites from the band) and Cornell's Superuknown-esque croon and bite in full glory.
The band actually played it once back in the day too – at the 1995 Reading Festival. It sounded spectacular then too with Cornell demonstrating his often underappreciated skill for playing in odd time signatures while singing.
Kyle Petty, Son Of Richard and Blind Dogs
How good were Soundgarden's outtakes? For the final pick I was torn between Storm, Fresh Deadly Roses and… just listen to them all! But I'm honing on the live versions of Kyle Petty, Son Of Richard and Blind Dogs Soundgarden performed on Pearl Jam's Self Pollution Radio broadcast in 1995 because they capture one of the great rock bands at a special time. And Cornell sounds positively haunting on the latter song.
Kyle, Son Of Petty is a b-side (named after the former US stock car driver) from the Superunknown era featuring the band digging into 7/8 and 5/4. Soundgarden had never performed it live before this session and didn't again until after their reunion at a 2015 show in Sydney, Australia. It sounded great there too.
Blind Dogs is a fascinating song – a Cornell/Thayil co-write digging into the psychedelic slow build side of the band with the vocalist's low register giving way to a high crescendo.
Surprisingly, it was the first song the band chose to play together after their reunion was announced in 2010.
The studio version was originally included on the soundtrack to the 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio film The Basketball Diaries. But the longer outtake version above, included on the Badmotorfinger anniversary reissue tops it.
The live 1995 Face Pollution performance has an undeniable intensity of its own. It's an intimate seat in the room with a band and vocalist we'll never hear the likes of again.
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