RSS
Home
More than words: Temple of the Dog goes on Hunger Strike
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
Temple of the Dog (wordpress.com)
Have you ever loved a song to the point of ridiculousness but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t understand the lyrics? What was the artist thinking when writing your favorite tune? More Than Words, a weekly column, will help to delve a little deeper…
Hunger Strike, Temple of the Dog (Temple of the Dog, 1991)
Formed in Seattle in 1990 by Soungarden lead vocalist Chris Cornell, Temple of the Dog, also featured Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Matt Cameron before their breakthrough as Pearl Jam in 1992.
Cornell started the band as a tribute to his friend, the late Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, the band of both Gossard and Ament at the time. The band only released one, self-titled album in 1991 and sold 70,000. The album finally earned praise from music critics when Pearl Jam reached success with Ten.
“Hunger Strike” was written by Cornell and in 1991 during an interview with Damon Stewart on KISW 99.9 FM, Cornell, Ament and Gossard discussed how Vedder became a part of the song’s arrangement.
Damon: Eddie Vedder helps out a little bit on the record too, doesn't he?
Chris: Yeah, there was one particular song, Hunger Strike, which I believe is the first single, he was at one of our rehearsals for Temple of the Dog because he had flown up here, it was the week he was trying out for you guys I guess, and he told me afterwards that he really liked that song and the thing about that song among a couple of others that where stylistically the vocals really weren't anything that I had ever done before, on a record anyway, it wasn't really the way I was used to singing, and I thought his voice suited that song really well and I thought it would be great to do a duet.
Jeff: So Eddie sings the second verse and all the low parts after the second verse.
Chris: Yeah, and he sings backups on three other songs.
Jeff: There was actually a point too where you were trying to do like an overlapping part in practice...
Chris: Yeah, that's true, he sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively...
Damon: So he essentially just fell into it accidentally?
Chris: Yeah, when I asked him it seemed like he was flattered, it wasn't anything any of us had planned. He was just there and he's a great guy and an amazing singer, and I was like this is a fun project, so why not have him involved as well?
In 2005 during an interview with the Seattle Post, Cornell suggested that the song carries with it a political, socialist statement about gluttony and social inequality. The opening lyrics, “I don’t mind stealing bread, from the mouths of decadence” has a Robin Hood-type mentality – stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
The lyrics “I can’t feed on the powerless when my cup’s already overfilled” is testament to this. Cornell is suggesting that he can’t continue to ‘feed’ through greediness when he already has more than enough.
“The song is premised on the whole grunge idea of not just trying to make money. The 80's rock scene was dominated by decadence and over indulgence. This song was showing a break from that tradition. I don’t think it was speaking about one particular incident, but more of a statement about society as a whole and how the rich are willing to take from the poor. They were saying that they were willing to take from the rich (mouths of decadence), but not from the poor (powerless) since they were doing well enough. We have to remember that at this time none of these guys were rich, but they were doing well enough that they didn’t have to take from the powerless.” Songfacts.
“Hunger Strike” went on to be the band’s most popular song and it reached number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Temple of the Dog reunited to perform the song during a Pearl Jam show at the Santa Barbara Bowl in Santa Barbara, California on October 28, 2003. Wikipedia.
“Cornell and Vedder trade leads in "Hunger Strike”, and together they turn its four minutes into a veritable opera of rock-star guilt: "I don't mind stealing bread/From the mouths of decadence/But I can't feed on the powerless/When my cup's already overfilled." Cornell turns on the Robert Plant-style napalm full blast, but it is Vedder's scorched introspection that brings the conscience in the song to a full boil. "Hunger Strike" was his first starring vocal on record; it is still one of his best.
For "Hunger Strike" and "Reach Down" alone, Temple of the Dog deserves immortality; those songs are proof that the angst that defined Seattle rock in the 1990s was not cheap sentiment, at least in the beginning. And you can't help but love the irony of an album, made in great sadness, kick-starting the last great pop mutiny of the twentieth century.” David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 2000.
For More Information: KISW 99.9 interview, Temple of the Dog – Amazon, Hunger Strike on YouTube
Related Articles:
Comments
