Outshined is a song by Soundgarden, released as single on December, 1991. Written by the band’s frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released as the second single from their third studio album, Badmotorfinger (1991). It became the band’s first single to reach the U.S. Mainstream Rock charts, where it peaked at number 45. It was included on Soundgarden‘s 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides, the 2010 compilation album, Telephantasm and the live album Live on I-5.
Cornell said in an interview:
“I’ve never really been biographical in my lyrics, so when I wrote a line like ‘I’m looking California and feeling Minnesota’ from ‘Outshined’, it just felt refreshing.”
Cornell:
“I don’t know how everyone else feels … but I definitely go through periods of extreme self-confidence, feeling like I can do anything. Perhaps a fan will sense that, like in a performance, and the hero image creeps out. But then someone will say something, however insignificant, or I’ll get something in my head and, all of a sudden, I’m plummeting in the opposite direction, I’m a piece of shit, and I really can’t do anything about it. That’s where “Outshined” comes from, and why I’ll never consider myself a hero”.
“One of the first times I remember writing something personal was on tour. I was feeling really freaky and down, and I looked in the mirror and I was wearing a red T-shirt and some baggy tennis shorts. I remember thinking that as bummed as I felt, I looked like some beach kid.
And then I came up with that line—’I’m looking California / And feeling Minnesota,’ from the song ‘Outshined’—and as soon as I wrote it down, I thought it was the dumbest thing. But after the record came out and we went on tour, everybody would be screaming along with that particular line when it came up in the song. That was a shock. How could anyone know that that was one of the most personally specific things I had ever written? It was just a tiny line. But somehow, maybe because it was personal, it just pushed that button.”
Tracklist:
- Outshined (Edit)
- Outshined (Album Version)
- Girl You Want
- Show Me
- Into The Void
The music video for Outshined was produced by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and directed by Matt Mahurin, who would later direct the music video for The Day I Tried to Live. The video features the band performing the song in a steel mill. The video was released in December 1991. It is a fan favorite and gained considerable airtime on MTV, yet the band members themselves disliked it. According to Cornell, Mahurin was too busy concentrating on Metallica‘s video for The Unforgiven while working on the video for Outshined.
Cornell on the music video:
(Matt Mahurin) does people on the street, social underbelly crap, but it’s pretend underbelly. The clip was in the MTV Buzz-bin for a few weeks and then it fell off. About two months later he sent us the real cut, and it was fantastic, way better than the one that got on the air. It was frustrating. The unseen version was dangerous; the released version was a standard hard rock video. He kind of winged it, he was too busy with Metallica.
Soundgarden
Chris Cornell: vocals, rhythm guitar
Kim Thayil: lead guitar
Ben Shepherd: bass
Matt Cameron: drums
Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017)
