The Garbage song written as an ode to Chris Cornell
Twice in their decades-long career, alt-rock band Garbage have been rocked by the deaths of their grunge peers. Before Garbage was fully formed, Duke Erikson, Stever Marker, and Butch Vig had been searching for a female vocalist, eventually coming across Shirley Manson’s work with Angelfish. Manson had no clue who they were when Vig reached out and quickly encouraged the singer to check the credits on Nirvana’s Nevermind.
The night they all first met in London, Vig was made aware of Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide. The idea of Garbage was put on hold, and they waited until Angelfish wrapped up a tour of North America to even consider formalising things. After Marker, Erikson, and Vig went to an Angelfish gig in Metro Chicago, they officially invited Manson to audition. By all accounts, things didn’t go that well – but there was a feeling things could work out, so Manson auditioned a second time.
Because of Vig’s name in producing a grunge hit, they actively decided to make records that didn’t sound in keeping with his usual style. “When we first emerged, we called ourselves sci-fi pop,” explained Manson to The Face. “Back in the 1990s, we were one of the few bands who were mixing rock music with pop with hip-hop beats, and samples taken from classic records.”
Years later, with a handful of critically acclaimed albums behind them, Vig and Manson were invited to Yahoo to discuss their work together, and on the day of the interview, the news broke that Soundgarden’s frontman, Chris Cornell, had died by suicide. While Vig and Manson shared they didn’t know Cornell very well personally, they were clearly moved by his passing, using the opportunity to speak about a song they’d written with him in mind. As Manson put it, she was once so “obsessed” with the singer that she came close to naming a Garbage song after him.
“The story or memory associated with our first record – today, of all days – would be, actually, sadly, upon the news of hearing of Chris Cornell’s death,” she said. “We were writing a lot in Madison, and I was obsessed with Chris Cornell. Like, obsessed by him! It was around the time of ‘Black Hole Sun,’ and I used to watch him on MTV. And we ended up trying to write lyrics for ‘Fix Me Now,’ which started off being called ‘Chris Cornell.’”
While the ‘Chris Cornell’ track remains a lost demo, the finished version later became ‘Fix Me Now’ from 1995’s Garbage. Its imagery is similar to that of ‘Black Hole Sun,’ in its use of whimsical imagery to translate fear and longing: “Crashing silent broken down / Falling into night / Who gave up and who gave in / I’ll go without a fight.” Those lines feel very reminiscent of the lyrics that feature in ‘Black Hole Sun’: “Summer stench / Neath the black, the sky looks dead / Call my name / Through the cream / And I’ll hear you scream again.”
