When Bad Does Good

Album: Chris Cornell (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This previously unreleased song appears on the self-titled posthumous album, Chris Cornell.
  • The video stars the late Chris Cornell's 12-year-old son Christopher as a paperboy biking around Seattle, delivering copies of The Seattle Times. Christopher also starred in the visual for "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart," the lead single from his father’s 2015 solo album, Higher Truth.
  • Directed by Kevin Kerslake (Soundgarden's "Loud Love" and "Hands All Over"), the video features song lyrics from Cornell's illustrious career popping up across various Seattle locations. A house with the phrase "I Am Not Your Blowing Wind" written on its steps, for instance, is a homage to the 2002 Audioslave track "I Am The Highway."

    Kerslake said: "I wanted to highlight an aspect of Chris' talents often overshadowed by his more obvious virtues (e.g., his monstrous guitar chops, operatic vocal range or commanding physical presence), which is his place as one of this generation's greatest lyricists… but do it within a specific context that turned a simple, straightforward journey through the streets of Seattle into a eulogy, of sorts, with mystical undertones."
  • This won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance at the 2019 ceremony.

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