In
digging through my albums to find a subject for an article, many of the CDs I
end up writing about are ones with which I have history. Some I’ve played
almost to the point of breaking them, while others I’ve owned for years and have
hardly listened past the radio singles. For records such as these, previous
opinions of a younger and less-eclectic me are stuffed inside the jewel cases,
and when I break out those discs to give them a true listen, I find that the
new opinions and the old rarely match up. Often the songs I once adored, radio
hits and catchy choruses, take a backseat to the deep cuts, where the artists
weren’t afraid to experiment or embed some easter egg for the listener. And
more often, the songs that I hated and misunderstood become songs I cannot stop
playing, which was absolutely the case when I began spinning Soundgarden’s Superunknown.
When
I first listened to that record around the age of fourteen, there were a bunch
of songs I just didn’t “get,” but none more so than the closer “Like Suicide.”
Although the chorus was cool and catchy, my overall impression of the tune was
a resounding meh. It was slow, Chris’ singing was drawn out and moany and
lacked for the screaming power that he employed through the rest of the record,
and worst of all, it was long. I
didn’t understand it, and what I could understand I didn’t much care for, so I
didn’t listen to it. I went years without ever tasting Superunknown in its entirety, because I knew that the final course
was a drawn-out jam that took forever to get going.
This
impression of “Like Suicide” sat somewhere in my head for almost a decade,
until I decided to return to the record with an open mind, and this time
around, I felt as if I was hearing a completely different song. Immediately,
Matt Cameron establishes a groove with his drum beat, releasing the snare and
creating a more primal sound. As the guitars enter, alternating between a
swelling riff and spacious chords, the song’s eerie and somber tone
materializes, a perfect introduction for Chris’ soulful vocal. The song takes
its time to slowly build in energy and intensity: Chris’ vocals increasingly
push the volume and range upward, until Cameron flips his snare back on and
smacks his drum, igniting the tune into a new level of heaviness. All of this leads
up to a ripping solo from Kim Thayil, who completely melts the face of his
fretboard with speedy runs and precise melodies. This lead pulls the groove all
the way to the end, where the band sinks into a quiet and weighty final chorus.
Perhaps
it was my youthful naiveté that kept me from appreciating this song the first
time around, but now I find “Like Suicide” to be completely fascinating. The
song’s composition alone is extraordinary; with “Like Suicide,” Soundgarden
avoids standard structure, delivering all the verses before building to the
chorus, rather than alternating between the parts. The focus on dynamics,
building the tune to the point of explosion, is brilliant and poignant, a
musical background to the final breath about which the lyrics revolve. Also,
the guitars’ Open-D tuning allows for a deliciously spacious timbre, creating
room for Chris’ vocals to flutter about as they dive and rise.
Every
choice this band makes for the song is well-placed and deftly executed,
creating the perfect musical movement for Chris’ lyrics, which describe an
incident that occurred as he was composing. According to an interview with Melody Maker, after hearing a loud
thumping noise outside his house, Chris found “a beautiful female robin
writhing on the ground. She’d broken her neck flying into the window.” It fell
to Chris to end the creature’s suffering with a brick, immediately after which
he was inspired to write “Like Suicide.”[1]
Through the incident, Chris became intertwined with this bird’s final moments,
and his connection with the suicidal robin bleeds into his poetry. In the first
verse, he relates the discovery of his “broken gift” lying “dazed out in a
garden bed / With a broken neck.” But as he ends her suffering, he becomes
entangled in the experience of her death, finding a “taste so sour” in his
mouth as he “wield[s] a ton of rage.” Finally, he memorializes this strange
moment and strange bird that “lived like a murder” until the moment the brick
fell.[2] Chris’
lyrics are morbid but poignant, and his vocal is as respectful as it is
earnest. This combines with the dynamic approach of the music to create a sort
of eulogy, a celebration of an uncommon death.
Regardless of the intelligent and
meticulous musical choices, the powerful inspiration stemming from the
incident, the entire tune feels riddled with truth and reality. Listening to it
now, I see easily how such a song could have completely eluded my young teenaged
mind. Now, I find in its seven minutes so much honest connection with the
concept of death, as well as the complete bewilderment it brings every time it
seeps into our lives, for, as Soundgarden makes apparent, there is nothing the
living understand less than death.
