Spoonman

Spoonman

Soundgarden

“Spoonman” was the leading single off Superunknown. Its story begun once Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament started to consider a name for the fictional band in the 1992 film Singles, which came to be Citizen Dick. Out of the potential names, Chris Cornell created a few songs for the movie – and one of those was “Spoonman”, inspired by Californian yet radicated in Seattle street artist Artis the Spoonman. An acoustic version appears in the background of a scene of Singles, and later Cornell developed a full-fledged version for Soundgarden’s next album.

Even if Artis plays some silverware in the song, Cornell hadn’t met him when writing, and thus “it was an ode to an imaginary person in my head, so what’s happening musically is the attitude of supporting this guy who stands on a street corner and plays the shit out of some spoons.”