Chris Cornell – Nothing Compares 2 U

February 9, 2018

Track: Nothing Compares 2 U
Artist: Chris Cornell
Album: Unreleased (Live at Sirius XM Studio)
Year: 2015

Lyrics:

It’s been seven hours and fifteen days
Since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away
Since you’ve been gone I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
But nothing
I said nothing can take away these blues

Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

All the flowers that you planted, mama,
in the backyard
All died when you went away

It’s been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me where did I go wrong
I could put my arms around every girl I choose
But it just reminds me of you
I went to the doctor and guess what he told me
Guess what he told me
He said, “Boy, you better try to have fun no matter what you do.”
But he’s a fool

Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

All the flowers that you planted, mama, in the backyard
All died when you went away
I know that living with me, baby, is sometimes hard
But I’m willing to give it another try

Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you

Get It:

While this track isn’t yet available for purchase, follow these steps to create your own copy of this track:

1. Download and install ClipGrab. It’s free here.

2. Download and install VLC Media Player. It’s free here. (Be sure to download the right version for your OS.)

3. Go to YouTube and find Cornell’s video for Nothing Compares 2 U here.

4. Copy the YouTube URL for the video and open ClipGrab.

5. Paste the URL into the link field and click Grab this Click. You’ll be prompted to choose a location to save the video clip. Once the location is chosen, click Save. The video will download about 30 seconds.

6. Open VLC Media Player and choose the Media menu and select Convert/Save.

7. Click the File tab (if it’s not selected by default) and choose Add.

8. Navigate to the location where you saved the YouTube video and double-click it.

9. You will see a Convert/Save button at the bottom of the window. Click the down arrow on the right side of the button and choose Convert.

10. The Convert dialog will appear. In the center of the dialog is a drop-down menu named Profile. Click it and choose the file type you want to create. For a file playable in iTunes and on any digital music player, choose Audio – MP3.

11. The Destination field is blank, so click Browse, which will open the Save As dialog. Type a file name and choose a location for your new MP3 and click Save.

12. You are returned to the Convert dialog where you simply click Start. VLC does not notify you when the conversion is complete, but the process is done once the MP3 file appears in the chosen location.The conversion will take 30 seconds or less for a single three- to five-minute audio track.

13. Add the newly created file to iTunes.

Tip: I right-click the file, choose Properties from the context menu, then click the Details tab. From here, you can add the track title, artist, and so on. This is helpful to do now so that when you add it to iTunes, the file is easy to locate.

14. The file now behaves like any other digital music track. Note that MP3s created using this method are 128 Kbps. If you want lossless files, choose FLAC and then use a conversion program to convert the FLAC file to an Apple Lossless file. Use Any Audio Converter, which is free and available here.

15. Also, if you just want to save music videos, concerts, and so on to your hard drive, ClipGrab is fantastic. I’ve saved dozens of live performances and hundreds of music videos to my drive. I do this because videos available today on YouTube might be gone tomorrow. Well, that, and I am a collector of things.

Amazon Deal:

And if you just want to purchase an excellent live collection of Cornell’s solo work—at just $5—pick up a copy of the 17-track Songbook here:

The voice.

When I think of rock vocal brilliance, a handful of names come to mind, and Cornell enjoys rarefied air atop that list. If you’ve been a fan of rock music at any point of the last 30 years, you undoubtedly know Cornell as the vocalist for Seattle grunge juggernaut Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone tribute band, Temple of the Dog, and super-group Audioslave. However, what you might not know is that in addition to having one of the best pure rock and roll voices of a generation, Cornell had a vocal range that allowed him to sing pretty much any piece of music he picked up. The man could rip through a searing version of Jesus Christ Pose, then sit down to perform a positively angelic version of Ave Maria with equal ease and dare I say, grace.

Surprisingly, Cornell had no formalized vocal training. As someone who spent years singing in a choir and who took private vocal lessons for several years, untrained vocalists simply cannot sing like Cornell sang. At least the mortal ones don’t. My vocal teacher once told me that my voice was an instrument and I needed to train to use it like an instrument. And I was able to play, so to speak, but even at my best, I couldn’t do what came natural to Cornell’s five-octave range. To say that I in awe of vocalists like Cornell, Freddie Mercury, Geoff Tate, Paul Rodgers, and Steve Perry would be an understatement.

Cornell playing his final show in Detroit just hours before he died.

After Soundgarden rose to international fame in the early and mid-1990s, the band called it quits in 1997 amid rising tensions between band members. Cornell switched music gears as a solo artist, producing Euphoria Morning, which was a collection of mostly mid-tempo rockers and ballads that showcased Cornell’s range. Eventually, Cornell joined with members of Rage Against the Machine to form Audioslave, which featured a loud and muscular sound that was the perfect backdrop for Cornell’s powerhouse of a voice. Audioslave’s three records showed Cornell’s true range as the band produced a healthy assortment of stadium rockers, radio-friendly rock hits, and slow, cloudy tracks that allowed Cornell to show us just how powerful he could be with a mic in his hand.

Audioslave disbanded in 2007, and Cornell focused on solo material before Soundgarden reformed in 2010. For the following seven years, Cornell would split time between recording and touring with Soundgarden and performing as a soloist. His solo material ran the gamut in terms of intensity, though as a soloist, Cornell leaned harder on pop rock side of the rock genre.

In May 2017, Cornell was touring with Soundgarden and had just finished a show in Detroit, Michigan, when he was found dead in his hotel room in an apparent suicide by strangulation. After an investigation, authorities determined that Cornell, who suffered from depression, had taken too many sedatives (legally prescribed for anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness) and committed suicide. His family has said they believe the particular combination of medications he took that night altered him in such a way that he acted in a way he wouldn’t have otherwise.

According to his widow, Cornell had been sober since 2009 after having battle addiction earlier in his life. We might never know what happened that night in a lonely hotel room in Detroit.

But we do know that we lost a vocal talent the likes of which we shall not see again.

Video:

This was a one-take live performance of Nothing Compares 2 U (written and recorded by Prince and later made a hit by Sinéad O’Connor) at the Sirius XM studios in 2015. Folks, this kind of one-take perfection just ain’t normal:

Here is Cornell performing Long Gone (Rock Version), which was released as a single. Note, the original version of Long Gone, which appeared on Cornell’s 2009 album, Scream, is entirely different. While there a few good tracks on Scream—and Cornell’s voice is still amazing—Cornell produced this album with Timbaland, which as you might imagine put a, well, different spin on the Cornell we know and love. I respect him for trying something new, but this is, by far, my least-favorite of Cornell’s work. Having said that, the tracks Two Drink Minimum and Ordinary Girl are quite good and less poppy. Interestingly, Two Drink Minimum was recorded live on Cornell’s excellent Songbook album, only it appears under the title, As Hope and Promise Fade (which is from a lyric in Two Drink Minimum). Both versions are stellar, and they underscore my belief that Cornell should have recorded more blues-oriented work. He had a perfect voice for it.