Chris Cornell was writing the music for this song in his basement when he heard a thump on his front door. When he opened the door, he saw a robin writhing around on the ground, it had obviously flown into the window and broken its neck: "Dazed out in a garden bed with a broken neck lays my broken gift." So he grabbed a brick and smashed the bird with to put it out of its misery: "And my last ditch was my last brick lent to finish her." Then he went back downstairs and wrote the lyrics.
Despite the title, this song has nothing to do with suicide. The album was released about a month before Kurt Cobain took his own life, leading many listeners to analyze his lyrics for premonitions. Chris Cornell was sometimes asked about this, and he made it clear that looking for suicidal thoughts in song lyrics was hopeless.
An all-acoustic version of this song can be found on Alive In The Superunknown.
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