At the time of writing this, ‘Switch Opens’ is the second least played song from Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside on Spotify, only in front of the LP’s penultimate track, ‘An Unkind’. These two songs just so happen to be two of my favourites from it. When I was working in my first job out of uni in 2018, I had enough time during the day to go through artist’s discographies while I was behind the computer. I went through Soundgarden’s one week, and …the Upside became my favourite one by the band. So much so, I wrote a whole post dedicated to it. I’d had it on my own iTunes library, maybe since 2016 or something. But in 2018, I wasn’t in so much of a happy place, and I think the album suddenly made a ton of sense. The songs on there had much more of an impact than they did before. Hearing them on good loudspeakers probably helped too.

‘Switch Opens’ is one of the number of songs on the album where the music is written by bass guitarist Ben Shepherd with singer and guitarist Chris Cornell providing the lyrics. It’s a songwriting combination that works very, very well, with efforts like ‘Zero Chance’, ‘Never Named’ and ‘Dusty’ all coming out of it. The thing I like about ‘Switch Opens’ is how openly riffy it is. For lack of a better term. There’s the sort of circular chord progression going on during the verses, leading into the grungier, scaly riffs in the pre-choruses, then to the descending chords in the choruses before looping to those of the verses again. Ben Shepherd has a tendency incorporate these Indian-style qualities in his compositions, ‘Head Down’ and ‘Half’ from Superunknown being obvious examples. I’m a big fan of those two. They come through much more subtly on ‘Switch Opens’, and I’m all for it just the same.

As for Cornell’s lyrics, well, I still haven’t fully made up my own mind on his words. This guy from 20 years ago says it’s a song about change and bringing it about. When change occurs, the possibilities are endless. The switch is on. Those last two sentences are my own add-ons. But I’m all for that interpretation. There is a sense of optimism and wonder that I get from the tune. It’s the perfect mix of vocal and music to convey those sorts of feelings. Cornell sings it as only he could, very well, but also kind of wailing and droning in the verses and pre-choruses, before settling on a ‘Switch is on’ mantra that echoes around for the actual choruses. It’s a different delivery than the sheer power and grit he usually provides. It all works, though. I wonder how the band actually felt about the song. You can’t find a live performance anywhere online, which makes me think they at least thought it was okay, but nothing to be playing every night. Here’s a clip of drummer Matt Cameron singing/playing it on Seth Meyers years ago. That’s as close as we’ll get, I guess.