Written by Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell, this is one of his more personal songs. It deals with the extremes of his personality: how he can feel like he's on top of the world one moment and in the gutter the next.
The song runs 5:10, but the video was cut down to about 4:05 to make it more appealing to MTV. It got a few spins on the network as a "Buzzworthy" video, but never made it into regular rotation. The band wasn't happy with the clip, which was directed by Matt Mahurin - he was also working Metallica's "The Unforgiven" at the time, and Soundgarden thought they were getting short shrift. Guitarist Kim Thayil was particularly frustrated, since his solo was edited out.
The line, "I am looking California but feeling Minnesota" became one of the most memorable Soundgarden lyrics. Chris Cornell came up with that line when he was in a dour mood and looked at himself in the mirror. He was wearing his typical outfit of baggy shorts and a T-shirt (high fashion in the '90s), and realized that he looked like a carefree beachgoer, even though he didn't feel like one. This line crept into the collective conscious and even inspired the name of the 1996 movie Feeling Minnesota, starring Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz.
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