Death of a Stranger

I never met Chris Cornell. Obviously, I mean, I’m some random schmuck in Leduc. I’m not exactly loaded down with celebrity connections. The closest I ever came to the guy was seeing him and Audioslave live many moons ago. And yet, I find myself affected by his passing in a way that isn’t typical. Usually, someone famous dies and there’s a bit of “That’s too bad.” and then I take another sip of coffee and turn the page. Okay, obviously I’m on the Internet and not actually reading a paper but I’m making an analogy here. But this time I linger a little bit. This time there was a bit of a punch to go along with the news.
There are a few reasons why Chris Cornell’s death is a bit more of a kick to the crotch than all the rest. The guy is hands down one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time. Check out live videos from the past year or two and marvel as he continues to hit those high notes the same way that he did in the 90’s. A Soundgarden song provided the musical backdrop when two of my best friends danced for the first time after getting hitched. And Soundgarden were one of the bands of my youth. Now Chris Cornell is dead, and I’m 40 years old and much more aware of my own mortality then I was back in the day. Shit, I’m closer to 52 then I am to the age that I was when I first started hearing Soundgarden. That’s part of the reason why this one hits a bit closer to home for me. One more long tendril connecting to my younger days withers and dies off.
I was a big fan of David Bowie, James Brown, Phife Dawg and B.B. King, to list just a few of the names on the morbid ledger of musicians who have recently left this world. I was even lucky enough to see most of them (A Tribe Called Quest being an exception from that list) live before they passed. Obviously. Would have been one weird fucking show if it was post-mortem. But their passings didn’t really impact me in the same way.

The thing is, I got in to all of them later on in my life. But Soundgarden got in to my brain while I was still figuring out what in the Hell I actually liked. They were one of the building blocks in terms of music. Shit, they might have been THE building block upon which the rest of the foundation of my own personal house of musical fandom was built. Let’s hop into ye ol’ Wayback Machine and visit a time of young, dumb Cliff and his lamentable hair choices of yesteryear.


See, young and dumb Cliff was a total hair metal fan. Oh sure, he got out of that box a little bit, but only in terms of just straight up metal metal. That’s how Metallica and Pantera and the like made their way straight into his earholes. But that was it. That was all there ever would be. Grunge? Fuck that shit. Nirvana was the band that basically fucked up what he had liked before. However would Skid Row adapt and recover in a world of Nirvana? Incidentally, I’m still not the biggest Nirvana fan. They’re…okay. But if you’re the ones who plant the flag, you get to run the show. That’s how it works.

Alice in Chains (Fuck yes!) and Rollins Band (Angry guy shouting. Not really a stunner that young Cliff was all in) had made it through the firewall, but the rest of those bands could go fuck themselves. Pearl Jam? Obnoxious. Now I would best describe them as incredibly uneven. Smashing Pumpkins? What is with dude’s voice! And he seems like a douchebag. So, so true. Stone Temple Pilots? Redundant. Seriously, their first album sounded so much like Pearl Jam that everyone thought they WERE Pearl Jam. I never really got past that, even though they dumped the clone act and actually did some interesting stuff. Sonic Youth? Since when is guitar feedback and squealing music? I still kinda feel this way. Radiohead? Oh boy, whining! Sadly, just as I figured out that they were awesome, they decided to put the guitars away and fuck everything up. Soundgarden? Ugh, this is lame! With the exception of Outshined, which was pure early 90’s metal crunch that still makes me feel fired up and wanting to punch through a wall.

This went on for awhile until some evening when my musical brother-in-arms Liam suddenly told me that he had been listening to Soundgarden, and he actually kinda…you know…liked them and stuff.

But hey, Liam hadn’t really steered me wrong when it came to music (Except perhaps Mr. Bungle. I still flat out do not understand what in the fuck that was), so maybe he had retained his sanity. Maybe it was okay. Maybe I could listen to it and my world wouldn’t come crashing down. I was wrong. So wonderfully wrong.


BOOM. Young Cliff’s brain started firing in ways that it never had before. This was kinda different. This was him trying something he had previously dismissed and realizing that he liked it. And if he could be wrong about this…
Fast forward many years. Cliff is now listening to punk, funk, Motown, hip hop, gangsta rap, blues and pop. Not all of that came from one Soundgarden song, but the willingness to expand my tastes and try listening to different things started there. That song planted the seed. That song changed the way that I thought about what was good and bad music. That song encouraged me to always be seeking out something new. And I continue to live that way today.

Take that away and I might be one of those sad middle aged dudes continuing to rock out to the sounds of their past in a desperate ploy to continue believing that the past is still right now. I’d be part of the legion of damned who funnel into venues as their creaky music idols of old continue to tour in a nostalgia festival that just demeans everyone involved. To be clear, I have no problem with old bands touring or being seen live. But we’ve all encountered those sad individuals who refuse to admit that they’ve gained fifty pounds and lost thirty years and keep on keeping on like it’s 1987. So thank you, Chris Cornell. Because nobody needs to see that. And I do somewhat enjoy maintaining a shred of personal dignity.