Soundgarden
Black Hole Sun
1994 · Superunknown
Official music video. Official music video on the Soundgarden channel. © 1994 A&M Records.
Documented
Song by Soundgarden, from the 1994 album Superunknown. A&M. Chris Cornell wrote it. The chair links the official music video because the picture is part of what people meet.
What can be seen or heard
The chorus asks a black-hole sun to come and wash the rain away. Heaven and hell are named. Sleep, and a world in which honest men are gone, are named. The video, directed by Howard Greenhalgh, shows a bright suburb, fixed grins, and that suburb drawn into a black sun while the band plays in a field. The video’s picture is the director’s. It is not a sentence in the lyric.
What the artist said
Cornell told Uncut in 1994 that the title began as a misheard line from a news anchor on a drive home, and that the lyric was a surreal dreamscape, wordplay, not a statement he wanted taken literally. He also said the song is sad, and that the pretty melody makes people hear it as cheerful. That correction is his. A theory that overrides it is not his.
Living Realm comparison
A familiar, smiling scene comes apart under a dark sun. A comparison can set that beside a surface that does not hold. Cornell said there was no literal idea to extract. The comparison does not overrule that sentence. It sits beside the record so a visitor can look.
Related
A link is a place to compare. It does not move this recording onto that record.