While I certainly enjoy spotlighting music videos that I really know, or enjoyed as a kid, part of doing these posts is personal discovery for me. I have owned a copy of Badmotorfinger since people actually bought CDs. It was the dark ages. I’m not one of those people to act high and mighty about something stupid like that. Although, it is neat to be holding the liner notes in my hands right now. This is the first time I’ve looked at them. That tells you how much I cared about that stuff. It actually has the lyrics for each of the songs written on it divided by a triangle like the one on the cover.
The music video is entirely new to me. I would never have thought to take a group like Soundgarden, and have them playing their song called Rusty Cage in a pristine white room. Although, it does contrast well with the outside where the action takes place. Frankly the outside of the room looks like an Alice in Chains video. In fact, you could say that inside that shack is an era of music about to be nuked out of existence by bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, so it’s appropriate that at the end, the shack is destroyed by a car.
Also, am I the only one who looks at the shack they are in and thinks of Doctor Who? Probably because of that running joke that Internet movie reviewer Phelous used to do with a shack in his yard as his Tardis.
The song itself is one of my favorite Soundgarden songs purely for the guitar. I am a sucker for a great solo, riff, etc. on the guitar. I love the speed at which the music video cuts to go along with the speed of the guitar. That’s another thing I am a sucker for: speed in music. That speed can be the lyrics too. I don’t think I have mentioned it elsewhere, but for 2nd grade show and tell, I sang the opening song to The Music Man (1962) from memory. Again, the dark ages because me and my dad had to transcribe the lyrics from the movie for me to memorize them. I loved the speed at which the lyrics were sang. Here it is hopefully.
That’s not to say that the rest of it isn’t quality. I mean it is Chris Cornell singing back before the musical apocalypse of the late 90s destroyed children’s ability to recognize a great voice. American Idol hasn’t helped over the years either.
Finally, Johnny Cash covered this song too. This was news to me. Here’s that song for comparisons sake.
Through the Shattered Lens 