The best-known Temple of the Dog was something Chris Cornell wrote questioning whether his music would get commercialized, and eventually found new life once presented to the other musicians of the project:

When we started rehearsing the songs, I had pulled out “Hunger Strike” and I had this feeling it was just kind of gonna be filler, it didn’t feel like a real song. Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a [ Mookie Blaylock] rehearsal and I was singing parts, and he kind of humbly—but with some balls—walked up to the mic and started singing the low parts for me because he saw it was kind of hard. We got through a couple choruses of him doing that and suddenly the light bulb came on in my head, this guy’s voice is amazing for these low parts. History wrote itself after that, that became the single.

Once released as a single following Pearl Jam and Soundgarden’s breakthroughs, “Hunger Strike” reached the Top 10 in the Alternative and Mainstream Rock charts. Pearl Jam has performed it live on occasions Cornell was nearby – and given the duet nature of the song, with guest singers such as Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses, Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney and Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother.