Hunger Strike (song) - Origin and Recording

Origin and Recording

"Hunger Strike" was written by vocalist Chris Cornell. It features a duet between Cornell and vocalist Eddie Vedder. Cornell was having trouble with the vocals at practice, when Vedder stepped in. Cornell later said "he sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively."

Cornell on the song:

When we started rehearsing the songs, I had pulled out "Hunger Strike" and I had this feeling it was just kind of gonna be filler, it didn't feel like a real song. Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a rehearsal and I was singing parts, and he kind of humbly—but with some balls—walked up to the mic and started singing the low parts for me because he saw it was kind of hard. We got through a couple choruses of him doing that and suddenly the light bulb came on in my head, this guy's voice is amazing for these low parts. History wrote itself after that, that became the single.

Guitarist Mike McCready on the song:

I remember thinking that this was a really beautiful song when I heard it. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) showed me the riff. I had a '62 reissue Strat and I wanted to use the fourth-position tone setting—between the bridge and middle pickups—for the beginning of the song because I like that softer sound. Then I kicked it to the front pickup for the heavier part of the song. This is one of many amazing songs written by Chris.