I hate that so many of the blogs I write out of necessity begin with a cliche, but it seems unavoidable any time one speaks of a universal theme or truth. This week I want to talk about and remember the late, very much missed, Chris Cornell. My cliche is on the nature of time. We’ve all felt it; the way time drags at the DMV versus the speed at which a vacation flies by. Time is fickle. It seems completely unreal to me that today marks the ninth anniversary of the passing of Chris Cornell. I remember receiving a text from an old friend. It simply read “Chris Cornell!” and my heart sank because I knew it could only mean one thing. Cornell’s death in Detroit on May 18th, 2017 was ruled a suicide by hanging. It was a waste and a complete tragedy for all who knew, loved and admired him.
To be honest, and those who know me will nod in agreement, Chris Cornell is not in my immediate wheel house. I’m more of a power metal girl. He was your definitive grunge, post-grunge, psychedelic rock star, but he was also hard rock and that’s the intersection. We meet at hard rock. He made a lot of music and many songs that I love. He contributed to our mutual community experience. Those songs penetrated our shared consciousness and became part of our day-to-day language. Cornell helped write and sing the soundtrack to many of our personal movies.
I frequently say (to anyone who will listen) that you simply never know what battles another human being is fighting on a daily basis. Here was this man blessed with an almost four octave range voice (from C 2 to A 5), huge gifts musically, intelligent, tall, a good friend to many, blessed with three children, handsome, and an actual rock star. On the other hand he battled depression, anxiety and substance abuse (though he became progressively more clean and sober throughout his life). So despite all the fame, the money, the adulation he earned, I would never want to trade places with him.
And the fall-out continued after Cornell’s death. Just two months later Cornell’s close friend Chester Bennington (lead singer of Linkin’ Park) was found dead by hanging on July 20th, Chris’ birthday. Bennington had taken his friend’s death hard, saying that he could not imagine the world without him (Cornell).
I reflect upon Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington often, especially now that the guard rails are off our government and funding to treat mental health issues has been cut to the bone. There are so many beautiful souls that we lose, every day, to some variation of mental illness and its fallout whether it might be suicide, overdose from self-medication, domestic violence, whatever. We as a society are failing our own people. I’m talking mental health, children in ICE custody, families unable to afford the cost of living, our citizens cut down in their neighborhood streets (Andrew Pretti and Renée Good), the list goes on.
When it came time to choose this week’s song, there was a lot to choose from, especially with a voice like Chis Cornell’s. While customarily a baritone, he could easily sing as a tenor then slide into a falsetto. He could snarl, scream, and rasp. He truly had the chops. I chose Say Hello to Heaven by The Temple of The Dog which, ironically, was a salute by Cornell to his own dear friend Andrew Wood who died of an overdose. Wood was the lead singer of the group Mother Love Bone and the name of the tribute band Cornell founded to honor his friend was taken from a line in the Mother Love Bone song Man of Golden Words, “seems I’ve been living in the temple of the dog.”
If you would like to hear some of the inspiration for Say Hello to Heaven you can check out the link below which is to a previous Musical Monday on Mother Love Bone’s Man of Golden Words, still one of my favorite songs ever.
