It’s three decades since Soundgarden accomplished the one thing their major-league peers had achieved but had so far eluded them. The Seattle quartet had shapeshifted from independently signed local heroes into a muscular, mainstream rock band and were on a successful run of one big record (1991’s Badmotorfinger) and one even bigger record (1994’s Superunknown) but they had never had a huge hit, a big smash that could match, for example, Pearl Jam’s Alive, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit or Smashing Pumpkins’ Today. But then Black Hole Sun happened.
It was the third single to be lifted from Superunknown, coming out in the US in May 1994 with the UK release following in August. A departure from the band’s usual sonic assault of seething riffs and pummelling rhythmics, Black Hole Sun came across like a Twilight Zone version of The Beatles, all twisted psychedelic-pop and eerie balladry. A few years ago, the band spoke to Uncut about how it came together.
“I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle,” the late, great Chris Cornell recalled. “It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard ‘blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah’. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that’s played beneath the riff.”
Cornell explained that he got home and immediately whistled the melody into a dictaphone so he wouldn’t forget. “The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a key and adding a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar, a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and the title.”
“I knew immediately it was a heavy-hitting song,” added bassist Ben Shepherd. “I equated it with Stevie Wonder, that level of songwriting. Huge. I liked that it wasn’t heavy and visceral. It was melodic but it was its own thing. We were pioneers, we didn’t have a formula. The underground, the Seattle scene and that whole alternative rock thing we came from going back to Sonic Youth and Hüsker Dü, wasn’t shiny and happy. We were reticent about being stars and that was the mood of the world around us. It was more honest. Being a star wasn’t seen as cool, life wasn’t shiny or happy. The song represented that attitude.”
Guitarist Kim Thayil says the band knew they were onto something and there was a slight reluctance about the fact they’d written a possible hit. “We understood it had very strong commercial potential,” he said. “We didn’t know what that would mean for us. If it became huge, would people expect to play it everywhere we go? There was hesitation. Our musical identity was something we’d worked hard for. Maybe that’s why we were a little tentative.”
But the fact Soundgarden had huge success with their own warped take on a mainstream hit is precisely what made them great. They consolidated the deviant vibes with Black Hole Sun’s unsettling video, which you can revisit below:
