Chris Cornell is not only one of rock music’s greatest singers, he’s also a prolific songwriter. As the frontman of Soundgarden, among the hits he wrote for the band include “Black Hole Sun,” “Pretty Noose,” “Burden in My Hand” and “Blow Up the Outside World.” Though he died tragically in 2017, Cornell left behind a legacy of unforgettable songs.
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Meet the Writer of “Black Hole Sun”
Cornell was a native of Seattle, Washington, born on July 20, 1964. Growing up, the future rock star battled anxiety and severe depression. He ultimately dropped out of high school, using rock music as a way to cope with his emotions. Prior to music, he had jobs ranging from dishwasher to fishmonger. He formed Soundgarden in 1984 alongside bandmates at the time, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Hiro Yamamoto and drummer Scott Sundquist. The band, and Cornell specifically, are attributed for helping to spearhead the grunge music movement in the 1990s. In addition to Soundgarden, Cornell also embarked on a solo career and was part of the rock supergroups Audioslave and Temple of the Dog.
Outside of his own music, Cornell was also heavily involved in writing music for film. Since the 1990s, Cornell has had a variety of songs appear in films, beginning with his solo song “Seasons,” along with Soundgarden’s “Birth Ritual,” both of which were on the soundtrack of the romantic comedy, Singles, that centered around the ’90s grunge scene.
Mission: Impossible 2 and the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale are some of the other films he contributed music to. The latter earned Cornell and co-writer David Arnold a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media in 2008 for “You Know My Name.” He also had success with “The Keeper,” which he wrote for Machine Gun Preacher, which was nominated for a 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Song, and contributed to the 12 Years a Slave soundtrack by writing “Misery Chain” that he sang as a duet with Joy Williams.
“In my mind, I’m writing a soundtrack to an imaginary world always,” Cornell explained of his songwriting process to the Associated Press in 2015. “And I’m choosing different worlds over the course of my career…but discovering what that world is to write a soundtrack to I think took a little time.”
On May 18, 2017, Cornell died in a hotel room in Detroit, Michigan, following a show with Soundgarden. Cornell’s voice is immortalized through a variety of catalogs. With Soundgarden, he released six studio albums. As a solo artist, he unveiled five projects. His fifth and final album, No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1, was released posthumously in 2020 and made it into the Top 10 on the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart. Audioslave released three albums from 2002 to 2006 while Temple of the Dog only released one self-titled album in 1991.
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