No Attention (Soundgarden ~ Acoustic Cover) - Dominic Valenti

I’d say you’re out of your mind if this is your favorite song/favorite Soundgarden song/favorite song from ‘Down on the Upside’. Which begs the question: Why am I bothering to cover it? Yes, it rocks and the lyrics, and their repetition, are great (I tend to think of it as a cousin of Pearl Jam’s “Drop the Leash”). But there’s a more specific reason for doing this one….
I was washing dishes the other night, listening to John Coltrane’s “India”. Right when Trane was really laying into the sax, making it honk and squeak like only he could, my youngest son asked me, “Why does this sound so…bad?!?” And we both laughed, and this reminded me of something that happened about 20 years ago…
I was working as a short-order cook at this restaurant called the Autoport in State College, PA (does it still exist?!?), and we were listening to the ‘Down on the Upside’ CD on the kitchen boom box. In a moment of pure perfection, in the middle of “No Attention”, right when Cornell was doing one of those totally righteous ‘NO ATTENTION!!’ screams, my co-worker Chad looked at me with a face expressing horror/disgust. A look that said “What the HELL is this?!?” And I smiled to myself, and thought how awesome it was that a song could have this effect on someone.
Both Coltrane and Cornell made plenty of achingly beautiful music, but sometimes the purpose of music is to touch a nerve and shake us out of our sleepwalking. And I think that’s what was so great about that moment. Chad was just slogging his way through another day, when that voice jumped out and grabbed his……ATTENTION! Ha!!
Here’s to all of those great songs that have made many a casual listener exclaim, “What the HELL was that?!?”
Long live rock!