Chris Cornell ~ Sunshower
(written: 16 March 2004)
You know how in High Fidelity, Rob says you have to be very careful when you're putting together a mix tape for someone because you're using someone elses poetry to express your own feelings?
Well, few songs in my HALL OF FAME™ really can have the whole... situation where the lyrics don't seem to have any sinister double meaning to them. You know. Like The One I Love by REM. Ha.
If I were to make YOU a mix tape to express how I felt, no doubt I'd include this song.
Hopefully you're familiar with this song. Soundgarden had split up and someone somewhere decided to put Ethan Hawke in a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow. But not just any movie. Great Expectations! You know, though the official reason for naming my dog Finn is that she's named after Neil Finn, I came up with a whole host of other reasons why the name was to be given. There are the other Finn's, Tim and Liam. There is the border collie that Murray Ball based his cartoon Dog after, who's name was Finn. And there is Ethan Hawke's character in Great Expectations.
I know. I'm such a 90s teenager. Screw the BOOK! Give me a slacker sex symbol as a confused artist and you have a favourite movie. So I went along and just as Finn reached his hand between Estella's legs there it was. The song I'd been dying to hear since I'd heard about it's creation. I barely even noticed the screen steaming up before my eyes. I was busy nudging my friend. She probably thought I was just horny or something.
And I can pinpoint exactly what it is I love the most about this song without any long pointless story.
"I hear you laughing and my soul is saved"
Come on. Are you kidding me? How beautiful is that sentiment? Most people probably hear me laughing and feel their skin crawl. Bastards. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it?
"When you find your way and then you see it disappear. It's alright. Though your gardens grey, I know all your graces someday will flower in a sweet sunshower"
See? That's exactly why teenage Lisa fell in love with this song so incredibly hard. You get one of her heroes (and Chris was a hero of mine, Soundgarden being a band that helped shape me into the well adjusted lass you see before you today) to sing about being lost and confused... and the reassure her! It's like he was my guardian angel!
"All you will be you are today"
That song is just ripe with lyrics to scribble on my school books. And don't think for a second that I didn't do just that. I still have my folder from 7th form, which I painted... (see photo). There just comes a time in every kids life where they need words of encouragement. And beauty. And that's what Sunshower is.