Songfacts®:

• This is the title track to Joe Satriani's instrumental concept album, which is based on his wilder self. "Shockwave Supernova" represents his alter-ego, the guy who gets on stage and plays guitar with his teeth.
  
  In our interview with Satriani, he explained, "It turned into a daydream that turned into a real idea for an album, which was that guy is Shockwave Supernova, who I've been using to bring myself out of my normal shell when I've got to go public."
• This is the first of 15 songs on the album, which finds the titular character going through his memories of performing and trying to make himself better. Satriani wrote the songs to support this character's journey, which ends with him becoming liberated. The guitarist says that the process was very liberating for him in a musical sense.
• Satriani played slide guitar on this track, but that's not how he envisioned it. When he brought the track to his co-producer John Cuniberti, they finished everything but the main melody, and Cuniberti told him that it wouldn't work unless he played slide. Satriani quickly worked it out on slide guitar and put down the track.