I cannot fathom...

...how any one could say that Chris Cornell writes shit lyrics. Granted, it's a minority of people, nearly all vaunted "rock critics" - ordinary people tend to think he kicks ass, in my experience, except maybe for his last hip-hop flavored LP which was a bold but perhaps not brilliant move. Oh well, gotta him props for trying something new - dude's been making hard, dark rock for 25 years. Let him have some fun! I could listen to him sing all day, personally.

But the critics (and it's inevitably professional critics) who criticize his lyrics while at the same time going ga-ga over his voice... those people strike me as the same uber-lames who called 2Pac a charismatic figure but a "medicore rapper/writer." What?? That's taking someone's best feature and calling it rubbish. It's light saying Vermeer was a hell of a painter, but his use of light was suspect and amateurish.

In the world of grunge/alternative metal/whatever it has come to be called these days, it's not necessary to be intelligent or pay much attention to lyrics, and long as you can play your instrument and have a great music engineers to make you sound like the bee's knees, and a top-notch record label that will hype your mediocrity until it's on every radio station nonstop (not that I dislike Green Day, but see: Green Day). Or else you have to be so real and awesome musically and unique and composed of genius-quarks that people will canonize you despite your refusal to sell out (see Radiohead).

But Chris Cornell has always competed against groups who struggled even to write corny love songs, songs about alienation (always in a hackneyed way), drugs and drink, women, and so on, and he's had success against them... AND his lyrics have always had a strange, dark edge - a spiritual core - to them that most of his fans don't even notice, much less celebrate. Even he doesn't emphasize it. It must be because he's an intelligent, thoughtful, soulful person who wouldn't respect himself if he didn't put solid words to his songs that did them justice. The moshers won't care one was or another, but borderline hard-rock fans like me most certainly pay attention to that stuff - I could never like a straight up DUMB band. To prove my point, I chose one song by literally closing my eyes and pointing at the screen (full of Soundgarden/Audioslave/C.C. Solo songs) and haved reproduced the words here:

***

"Scar On The Sky"

As I fall I leave this scar upon the sky
A simple note for you, I'll wait for your reply
And in your answer I'll regain my will to try

So hover in the diving light
We will rip the night
Out of the arms of the sun one more time
Close your eyes and we will fly
Above the clouded sky
And over the dumbstruck world, we will run

In these hills they wash the golden grains away
To the valley under all of this I lay
And may you dig me out unearthed and saved

So hover in the diving light
We will rip the night
Out of the arms of the sun one more time
Close your eyes and we will fly
Above the clouded sky
And over the dumbstruck world, we will run

We can rip the night
Out of the arms of the sun...

A blood red feather leaves a scar upon my hand
No longer stranded like a painted bird on a fan

So hover in the diving light
We will rip the night
Out of the arms of the sun one more time
Close your eyes and we will fly
Above the clouded sky
And over the dumbstruck world, we will run

We can rip the night
Out of the arms of the sun.

***

Now, it's a bit mysterious what he's going on about here, but this is a FAR cry from something Ozzy or Metallica or Mudhoney or Foo Fighters would write. What it lacks in simple power or clarity it gains in riddles and replayability. Kinda like REM not in substance, but it abstract form. Strange turns of phrase... poetry... unexpected rhymes.

But the bottom line is really this: You may like Mr. Cornell, you may be indifferent, or his brand of music may not be your taste at all, and in any of these cases that's cool. But just don't ever say his writing is shit. I think I can objectively say it's NOT. For really bad lyrics, look up "nearly all 80s hair metal." Meantime, I'll be listening to my "Carry On" CD....