Blow Up the Outside World
| "Blow Up the Outside World" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Soundgarden | ||||||||||
| from the album Down on the Upside | ||||||||||
| B-side | "Dusty" (Moby mix) | |||||||||
| Released | November 18, 1996 | |||||||||
| Format | CD single, Vinyl | |||||||||
| Recorded | November 1995 – February 1996 | |||||||||
| Genre | Grunge | |||||||||
| Length | 5:46 | |||||||||
| Label | A&M | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Chris Cornell | |||||||||
| Producer(s) | Adam Kasper, Soundgarden | |||||||||
| Soundgarden singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Blow Up the Outside World" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, "Blow Up the Outside World" was released on November 18, 1996 as the third single from the band's fifth studio album, Down on the Upside (1996). The song topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of four weeks at number one. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides.
"Blow Up the Outside World" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. Cornell stated that he wrote the song when he was in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and at the time of writing it "[he] was a little fucked up." Guitarist Kim Thayil on the song's guitar solo:
A blues-type thing, exactly. And after I recorded it, the rest of the band loved it, and the assistant engineer loved it, but I kept feeling like it was too stiff. I was using a Tele with .011's. I was listening to it, going, 'You know, it doesn't have my trademark finger vibrato,' like you can hear on Ultramega OK and Badmotorfinger. I wasn't quite satisfied with it, but because everyone else really enjoyed it, eventually I let it go...I finally had to relax and trust the guys that it was cool.
Regarding "Blow Up the Outside World", drummer Matt Cameron stated that "there's certain points in that tune that are just a really nice, emotional crunch that happens somehow....that one in particular, that made my girlfriend cry the first time she heard it." Thayil on the song:
A nice ironic, final single in a way. People said there was a Beatles-ish element. I suppose there is a bit of Paul McCartney and a little bit of Lennon in the flavour of the song. Everyone in the band grew up with the Beatles and we had a certain degree of respect and admiration for them that's not uncommon. I think many people were Beatles fans, especially for that period in time. There's a number of acoustic guitars on the track as well and then, towards the end of the song, it gets louder and aggressive and goes to these power chords, and is maybe a little reminiscent of AC/DC.
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