‘Josephine’: The poignant song that took Chris Cornell over a decade to complete
In the realm of songwriting, artists navigate an unpredictable landscape without a foolproof map to guide them to their desired destination. Instead, they must follow their hearts, allowing inspiration to lead the way. In the case of the late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, this path led him to an unconventional journey where a song patiently gathered dust on the shelf for over a decade before he finally undertook its completion.
The song in question, ‘Josephine’, eventually appeared on Cornell’s final studio album, Higher Truth, released in 2015. It’s a track of great emotional significance to the singer, who wanted to make sure it was perfect before he released it into the world, and the notion of sharing a half-baked version was unthinkable.
Higher Truth marked Cornell’s fourth solo album and proved to be his final full-length project before his tragic death in 2016. The LP is a highly poignant record that taps into his emotions and expresses immense vulnerability across its 12 songs. It took a lot of courage for Cornell to put his heart on the line on the album, particularly on ‘Josephine’.
Cornell said of the album to Billboard in 2015: “It’s that weird magic of if you sing a song you’re connecting to emotionally, it’s going to trick me into feeling my emotions.”
He added: “I’m not feeling your [pain], I don’t know what happened to you, but you have just tricked me into feeling my own pain and my own emotions and that is an amazing thing. That’s this miraculous thing about music. Film can do it too, art can do it, but music does it great.”
With ‘Josephine’, Cornell began the writing process while his relationship with Vicky Karayiannis was still in its early stages, but he knew she was the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life beside. When it finally saw the light of day, they’d been married for 11 years and brought two children into the world.
Cornell said of the track’s origin: “I started writing 12 years ago, and I sang it to Vickie over the phone. The chorus had Vicky in it, and then I recorded a version for Carry On, which was my second solo album. It was full instrumentation — a guitar solo and drums — and I wasn’t happy with it. I was sort of surprised I wasn’t happy with it. When I was writing for this album, and near the end of finishing it, I kept remembering it and knowing there was a great song in there.”
“The sentiment was very raw and real and immediate — writing it to someone I wanted to be my future wife that is now my wife and mother of my children. Finishing that thought may be one of the more satisfying moments I’ve had in songwriting my whole life,” he continued.
Reflecting on why it took such an elongated period for him to finally finish ‘Josephine’, Cornell stated this was down to how much he cared about making sure it was perfect. “The song worked out — it just took a long time to get there. Maybe I was too nervous about it. Maybe it meant too much to me in the beginning. I was overthinking it. I didn’t let it just flow out,” the singer added.
In the track, Cornell sings about wanting to make Karayiannis his wife, which he duly did. Sadly, they didn’t spend as long together as the singer-songwriter anticipated when he made ‘Josephine’, but the song is a testament to his love for her.
