Burden in My Hand

"Burden in My Hand" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, "Burden in My Hand" was released on September 18, 1996 as the second single from the band's fifth studio album, Down on the Upside (1996). The song topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of five weeks at number one. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides.

Origin and recording

"Burden in My Hand" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. It was written in Open C tuning.

Lyrics

The lyrics of 'Burden in My Hand' suggest the song is about a man who murders a woman he is in a relationship with and leaves her in the desert, not without regret. Some fans believe the lyrics are 'deeper' than the surface and indicative of something such as drug abuse or an abusive relationship; however, guitarist Kim Thayil called the song "the "Hey Joe" of the '90s." In a 2011 interview with ARTISTdirect.com, Chris Cornell was asked what the song had come to mean for him, years later. Cornell responded:

Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell (born Christopher John Boyle; July 20, 1964) is an American rock musician and singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and rhythm guitarist for Seattle rock band Soundgarden and as former lead vocalist and songwriter for the supergroup Audioslave. He is also known for his numerous solo works and soundtrack contributions since 1991, and as founder and frontman for Temple of the Dog, the one-off tribute band dedicated to his friend the late Andrew Wood.

Cornell is also known for his role as one of the architects of the 1990s grunge movement, for his extensive catalog as a songwriter and for his near four octave vocal range as well as his powerful vocal belting technique. He has released four solo studio albums, Euphoria Morning (1999), Carry On (2007), Scream (2009), Higher Truth (2015) and live album Songbook (2011). Cornell received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his song "The Keeper" which appeared in the film Machine Gun Preacher and co-wrote and performed the theme song to the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006), "You Know My Name". He was voted "Rock's Greatest Singer" by readers of Guitar World, ranked 4th in the list of "Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists" by Hit Parader, 9th in the list of "Best Lead Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone, and 12th in MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music".

Burden

Burden may refer to:

People

Places

Other uses

See also

Hand

A hand (Latin manus) is a prehensile, multi-fingered organ located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having "hands" instead of paws on their front limbs. The raccoon is usually described as having "hands" though opposable thumbs are lacking.

Fingers contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, are the richest source of tactile feedback, and have the greatest positioning capability of the body; thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands. Like other paired organs (eyes, feet, legs) each hand is dominantly controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere, so that handedness—the preferred hand choice for single-handed activities such as writing with a pencil, reflects individual brain functioning.

Some evolutionary anatomists use the term hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the forelimb more generally — for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand.