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.
Would have been an exciting time to be a Soundgarden fan in 1996, right? I’ll hold my breath for any answers. But I see it this way. Superunknown and a song like ‘Black Hole Sun’ brought the band some deserved critical and commercial success in ’94. Must have gained a lot of fans just through them. Then ’95 comes around, they start recording a new album. And in the new year that new album’s first single is released. ‘Pretty Noose’ from the upcoming album, Down on the Upside. Fans let that song soak in. The band was back, new song, hooray, hooray. Then the album arrives a month and a bit later. With ‘Pretty Noose’ being its opener and a track that people were well-accustomed to, the wait for new-new music was officially over with the track that would follow it in the track list.
The feedback and fading guitar chords at the end of ‘Pretty Noose’ just begin to get out of earshot before things are woken up again with the sudden drum roll and guitar riff that opens up ‘Rhinosaur’, the second track from Down on the Upside. Fans of the band will know that when it came to the songwriting duties, though people would look to Chris Cornell as the frontman and main face, all four members could very much bring forward any ideas that could then be worked on. In this case, the music for ‘Rhinosaur’ was written by drummer Matt Cameron, who also attempted to do vocals on it (according to this little interview the band did for promo) but found they were so “awful” that he was pleased when Cornell came along to take over. I mean, if you want someone to do vocals for your song, you could have a lot worse choices than Chris Cornell.
The song consists of the ascending and descending scales, each guitar in the frame playing the same sequence of notes in unison, as Matt Cameron keeps a steady beat – 3/4 time for those counting out there – and Cornell sings from the perspective of someone or something who feels at their most powerful when in the bleakest of situations. I’ve always especially enjoyed the rhythm of the song. It’s in 3/4 as I said before, but the way the guitar riffs rise and fall in this sort of cycle always gets my head moving in all sorts of directions. The start/stop dynamic of the chords during the chorus, where the timing shifts from 3/4 to 4/4, always get a screw-face from me. And then, in a sudden turn of events, things go into double-time for the instrumental break where Kim Thayil wilds out for his guitar solo before the band cascade into the final chorus and bring proceedings to a close. If first-time Upside were already happy with ‘Pretty Noose’, I think ‘Rhinosaur’ only solidified their faith that another superb album was in their hands.
Wrote a post about how much I was enjoying Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside once upon a time. That came in 2018 when the whole record really caught the headspace I was in during that year. It’d been on my iTunes library for I think a couple years up until then though, a decision that stemmed from stumbling upon its opening track ‘Pretty Noose’ on YouTube one day. What year it was, I can’t remember. Why I decided to watch its music video (above), I don’t know. Was probably on a Soundgarden/Chris Cornell-related binge or something. But I’m very sure that it was from that first watch of it that I might have just struck some gold.
Chris Cornell songs are notoriously hard to sing for anyone. I’ve tried many a time. There are actual professional singers who’ll cover his written material and never come close to the original. But here on ‘Pretty Noose’, Cornell seems to take things to another level. He sings really high here. Not in a high-pitch/falsetto kind of way, but he’s delivering each word at the uppermost part of his chest and with great power too. It can even look like he finds it difficult to go through himself if you were to search live performances of the track, even from 1996. But still, he sounds too damn good while doing it on the studio version, as you probably would expect. Everything starts off with what I can only describe as this slimy guitar line that, with a string bend, collides with the introduction of the full band really coming together to start the first verse. Matt Cameron sounds like he has eight arms on the drums throughout, while the guitars and bass all follow these falling/ascending chord progressions that make up the melodic centre of the track.
When Cornell passed away in 2017, I remember seeing comments in YouTube under this video along the lines of “Oof, these lyrics, yeesh, hit so hard now” etc. etc., which sort of irked me a little because suicide really isn’t what the song is about. Clearly, the imagery is there. But the lyrics more concern a huge attraction to something that isn’t good for you and having a huge sense of regret upon obtaining that thing that seduced you so much. At least that’s what I’ve always got from it. In Cornell’s words, it’s about “an attractively packaged bad idea … something that seems great at first and then comes back to bite you.” So I guess I was never that far off.
I wrote a post a while ago about Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside explaining why I thought it was so great and how it deserved to be appreciated just as much the albums that came before in Badmotorfinger and Superunknown. I may have been suffering from a bout of depression during that time. Upside was the soundtrack album to that period of time. Three and a bit years on and in a better state, I feel the same way about it – still my favourite Soundgarden record. I think I made something of a deal on how the songs co-written by Chris Cornell and Ben Shepherd were some my personal highlights on there. Here I am to talk about one of them.
‘Never Named’ is the eighth track on the album. Comes slap bang in the middle of the hour and five minutes it runs on for. Coming after what could be argued to be the two best songs of ‘Blow Up the Outside World’ and ‘Burden in My Hand’ with its irregular time changes and punk-like approach, ‘Never Named’ may seem like a bit of a “wtf” moment in the album’s running. Maybe its placement hinders its accessibility a bit, just a theory. Though as a track by itself, there’s certainly a thrill you can get out of it. Once you get those time changes down and get a feel of how drummer Matt Cameron pulls the track along with his fills, it all falls into place. There a lot of melodic guitar lines that catch your ear and lots of riffage to chew onto, all with Chris Cornell’s trademark vocals in between. Can’t be beat.
And what’s Cornell singing about here? Well, he starts with his old dog in the first verse. When he was young, his dog loved him like a God. But now he’s a big man in this successful rock music group yet he feels small and insignificant, like an insect or a small spot on the ground. That’s really the main message of the song. Being a full grown person, but still feeling like a small child inside. And Cornell takes it further in the choruses by referring to being a baby who looks like a boy. He sings it all very well. As to why it’s called ‘Never Named’, I’m not sure. I want to say the band couldn’t think of a proper name for the track, but instead of calling it ‘Untitled’ they put another spin on it. Probably wrong though, just my thought.
This is a thing I haven’t done in a long time. I last did this in 2014 for Cloud Nothing’s then newly released album Here and Nowhere Else. You can read that. I did another for Mac DeMarco’s Salad Days too. I was planning to do this for another album earlier this year, though for whatever reason just didn’t get to it. For the past few weeks though, the album that’s been on my mind is Soundgarden’s 1996 effort Down on the Upside.
The album’s been in my music library for quite some time now, but it’s only very recently that I listened to the whole thing again and realised just how brilliant it is. It was maybe around 2015 that I watched the video for ‘Pretty Noose’ one day – for what reason I can’t really remember now – and the track immediately became one that I would sing in the shower or hum out loud during idle moments. That song is the first on Down on the Upside, starting the proceedings off with its slimy riff from Kim Thayil and setting the tone for the rest of what’s to follow.
I downloaded the album soon after. I listened to it through all 16 tracks though nothing really stuck. Some months after ‘Rhinosaur‘ suddenly jumped out at me. That’s the second track on the album. With its music written by drummer Matt Cameron, ‘Rhinosaur’ features these ascending and descending riffs and licks that culminate into a stampede of a breakdown two thirds of the way through. It’s a really groovy track, almost funky in some ways, but a thrilling one overall. Takes you in different directions before throwing you all over the room. That was an instant add to the phone too.
And it stayed that way for a while. ‘Pretty Noose’ and ‘Rhinosaur’ were the golden two. I never paid much attention to the other fourteen songs that the album offered. Chris Cornell died in May last year and the first thing to do, like many others, was listen to the man’s music. Down on the Upside was still there in my library so why not listen to it once more? Surely there would be another track that I had been missing out on for all that time. There were riffs here and that were definitely pleasing… though that was it. I could recognise that there was something good about it all though it never really stuck.
That has all changed. I’m actually convinced that the album may be Soundgarden’s greatest. Now I know that the consensus is that Superunknownis the band’s opus, though there are some tracks on there that I can’t vibe to that well. Down on the Upside however provides almost every side of Soundgarden – the heavy side, the lighter side, the surreal side, the realist aspect. They are all combined to provide Soundgarden at their essence, which is probably what made it so suitable as their final album for all those years.
What was always so great about Soundgarden was that all four band members brought something to the table. It wasn’t a function where the lead singer held everyone to his beck and call; if any member has a piece of music or a lyric that could be worked on, the four of them would work together to create great compositions.
Matt Cameron who as aforementioned wrote the music for ‘Rhinosaur’ did the same for the ninth track ‘Applebite’, a stirring almost psychedelic song that becomes more intense as time goes on, aided by Cornell’s heavily masked ghostly vocals. Kim Thayil had less songwriting credits here than on previous albums, though the one track he completely wrote (‘Never the Machine Forever’) is a monstrous behemoth, complete with cinematic guitar riffs in odd time signatures and another captivating vocal performance from Cornell. Ben Shepherd, the band’s bassist, worked on six out of the 16 tracks on the album and it’s those songs (‘Zero Chance’, ‘Dusty’, ‘Ty Cobb’, ‘Never Named’, ‘Switch Opens’, ‘An Unkind’) that are highlights for me. Particularly ‘Switch Opens’ which, with lyrics written by Cornell, seems to signify a time of change, rising up and taking action.
The album is not as heavy as Superunknown. When I listen to each track I’m heavily reminded of the desert and sand, there’s just something about the music that gives me that imagery. It’s not just because those two things are mentioned in ‘Burden in My Hand’ either. There are some songs which make me feel like I’m in the same blacked out/spark lit room that the four members are in on the album cover. It’s a lot more acoustic but still grimey in its delivery. Much more groovier and less thrashy. Technically complex in terms of guitar tunings and time signatures but very melodically accessible. Every song has it for you.
I don’t want to say it in risk of possibly offending, but there’s something almost country about some parts of the album. I can already sense the ‘what’ reactions coming from anyone reading this. I know. I’m not referring to country music like…. Florida Georgia Line or…. Billy Ray Cyrus or something. (Those are my best examples). But surely you could listen to ‘Dusty’and its main riff that chugs along during the verses, or that little lick that occurs in ‘Zero Chance’….. even ‘Blow Up the Outside World’ in some ways, and consider that there’s something there? It’s my interpretation anyway. Though I think it’s the lighter direction the band seemed to be heading in that built some creative differences between bandmembers and resulted in their initial split in 1997.
It’s a real shame that Chris Cornell died. Soundgarden were in the middle of a tour when he did, and there was talk that they were working on a new album at the time. As for now Soundgarden are still a band albeit not doing anything at the moment understandably. I do hope that when it comes to 2021 that Cameron, Thayil, and Shepherd could get together to work on a 25th anniversary remaster of Down on the Upside. It definitely deserves one.
The Music in My Ears 