Songfacts®:

• A track from Soundgarden's breakthrough album Badmotorfinger, this one has music written by their drummer at the time, Matt Cameron, and lyrics by their guitarist Kim Thayil. It's one of the few songs by the band that lead singer Chris Cornell had no part in composing.
  
  The lyrics can be interpreted many ways, and Bible scholars will find parallels to a verse in the Book of Revelation: "When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison."
  
  In this context, the song could be about death and judgment. However, in our interview with Kim Thayil, it became clear that he was not reaching for anything so profound. When he writes lyrics, he starts by humming melodies to fit the groove, then finding the right words to fit those melodies. "I try to get a feel for the song, what it evokes with me," he said.
  
  Of course, there may have been a higher power guiding his hand as he wrote the words - perhaps even the same one that influenced "Stairway To Heaven." Like Robert Plant, however, Kim doesn't think so.
• Regarding the line, "Tomorrow begat tomorrow," Kim Thayil says that came from a movie, which he's pretty sure is the 1922 film Häxan, which is about witchcraft. He remembers a scene where witches are saying it in some kind of ceremony.