“There’s sadness for anyone that dies before their time, and specifically ones that seem to affect people positively. It doesn’t matter if it’s Whitney Houston or a nameless, faceless person on the street. That’s just as big of a tragedy for me.”- Chris Cornell
Summer is a lot of things. The smell of tomato plants. Driving with the windows down, jamming to my music. It is also traveling to art fairs with my dad. On our way home, I heard a guy over his CD player, and my initial reaction was, “hey, this is pretty good music.” My dad said, “This is Chris Cornell and the Stone Temple Pilots,” and I responded with, “the guy who just died right? “That’s right.”
Later that summer, I finally remembered to google Chris Cornell, Stone Temple Pilots… and couldn’t figure why Soundgarden and Audioslave kept popping up, but yet Stone Temple Pilots was left off his Wikipedia page. Then I realized that I had never actually heard Cornell’s music, I’d heard Scott Weiland’s. I questioned how my (super cool and extreme music fan) Dad could have made the mixup. I chose to answer that question myself, so I listened to Cornell’s music. Best music decision I’d made in years.
I have this theory that we will always have a connection to that first song that pulled us in. In listening to Cornell, I first heard Black Hole Sun. There was something about that song that made me play it repeatedly. It was so sad, but it left me feeling grateful. I am incredibly fortunate to have something to look forward to each day, to not personally feel that sadness. And, I was struck by his voice.
I eventually bought his music and loved it. Then I started YouTubing his music videos, and his interviews explaining the music he wrote. Who was this artist, this man, whom “no one sings like anymore”? Then I saw his discussions on Andrew Wood, the Mother Love Bone lead singer who had OD’d at 24. I couldn’t help but tear up because Cornell could have been talking about himself. And it hit me then just how much it hurts to lose a force like his in the world. Someone who could take his guitar, his pen and paper, and by laying down the words of his own soul, touch the souls of countless others. A man who believed in standing up for helpless children and who made that one of his life’s mission. I shed tears for our loss and even more so, his family’s loss. And then today, when I read this, I teared up again.
His loss still hurts and always will, but hopefully, his hurting has, like the rain, washed away.
Two beautiful tributes:
Norah Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQ08Ixczvo
Paul Cauthen and Cody Jinks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHRz8zBZCs