Spoonman is a song by Soundgarden. Written by the band’s frontman, Chris Cornell, and was released on February 15, 1994, as the first single from the band’s fourth studio album Superunknown (1994). Spoonman is credited as one of the songs that launched Soundgarden‘s career into the mainstream. The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number nine on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. A remixed version of the song by Steve Fisk appears on the Black Hole Sun and My Wave singles. The song was included on Soundgarden‘s 1997 greatest hits album A-Sides and the 2010 compilation album Telephantasm.
Spoonman was originally written for the soundtrack to the 1992 film Singles. At that time, Soundgarden, along with Pearl Jam, were working on the soundtrack for the film. Pearl Jam‘s bass guitarist, Jeff Ament, had been put in charge of creating the name for a fictional band that would appear in the film. Before finally choosing Citizen Dick for its name, Ament had compiled a list of potential names, which included the name Spoonman.
The name was inspired by Artis the Spoonman, a street performer from Santa Cruz, California, and later Seattle, Washington, who plays music with a set of spoons. Soundgarden‘s vocalist and songwriter, Chris Cornell, eventually used the names on the list to create songs for the film. Spoonman was among these, and an acoustic version was created from it. This early version of the song can be heard during a scene in the film in which a poster advertising a Citizen Dick show is stapled to a lightpost.
Rather than just leave the song on the film’s soundtrack, Soundgarden began working on an electric version of Spoonman. The song’s inspiration, Artis the Spoonman, played a prominent role in the song. The final version of the song featured Artis the Spoonman playing his spoons as part of the song’s bridge. The drummer, Matt Cameron, also plays pots and pans on the song and the bass guitarist, Ben Shepherd, performs backing vocals.
Tracklist:
- Spoonman
- Cold Bitch
- Exit Stonehenge
The music video for Spoonman was directed by Jeffrey Plansker (under the alias John Smithey). The video features Artis prominently, making him the focus of the video instead of the band, who are shown only in black and white still photographs. The video was released in February 1994.
Soundgarden
Chris Cornell
Kim Thayil
Ben Shepherd
Matt Cameron
Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017).
