Seek Out Another Road Cause This One Has Ended Abrupt

Temple Of The Dog
Temple Of The Dog (1991)

The album that opened the door to grunge rock for me was released thirty years ago today.  Temple Of The Dog came together when Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell approached Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament of Mother Love Bone with music that he had written in tribute to Mother Love Bone vocalist Andrew Wood, who died of a heroin overdose on March 19th, 1990.

By the time Temple Of The Dog began recording what would be their only album in November 1990, the group included Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron.  It also included two guys who were working on a project with Gossard and Ament at the time: Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready.  The four would go on to form Pearl Jam before the year had ended.

My stepsister introduced me to a lot of music in the early 90's, but this was the first album that she played for me that I really connected with.  I remember that she used to make mixtapes for me of the songs that I liked, and those tapes almost always included Say Hello 2 Heaven and Hunger Strike.  In the years that followed, those tapes also included music from Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and other artists from the Seattle music scene of the early 90's and the bands they inspired.  Those bands became the music of my high school years, and it all began with Temple Of The Dog.

As a teenager, my favorite song on the album was Hunger Strike.  Over the years, the death of loved ones and the loss of others have had me instead coming back to Chris Cornell's hauntingly beautiful tribute to his late friend and the opening track on the album:

Say Hello 2 Heaven

Temple Of The Dog (1991)

Please mother mercy

Take me from this place

And the long-winded curses

I hear in my head

The words never listen

And teachers, they never learn

My warmth from the candle

Though I feel too cold to burn

He came from an island

Then he died from the street

And he hurt so bad like a soul breakin'

But he never said nothin' to me

Say hello to heaven...

New like a baby

Lost like a prayer

The sky was your playground

But the cold ground was your bed

Poor Stargazer

She's got no tears in her eyes

But fool like a whisper

She knows that love heals all wounds with time

Now it seem like too much love

Is never enough

You better seek out another road

'Cause this one has ended abrupt

Say hello to heaven...

I never wanted

To write these words down for you

With the pages of phrases

Of all the things we'll never do

So I blow out the candle and I put you to bed

Since you can't say to me now

How the dog broke your bone

There's just one thing left to be said

Say hello to heaven...