Garbage members Shirley Manson and Butch Vig revealed in a Yahoo interview last month that they have a rough version of a track “Chris Cornell” sitting in the vaults somewhere. It later became “Fix Me Now.”
While Manson and Vig said they didn’t know Cornell well, they did run in the same alt-rock circles in the ’90s (for instance, Vig famously produced Nevermind, by Soundgarden’s Seattle peers Nirvana). And, as revealed during Garbage’s interview, Manson was once so “obsessed” with Cornell that she nearly named a Garbage song after him.
“The story or memory associated with our first record — today, of all days — would be, actually, sadly, upon the news of hearing of Chris Cornell’s death,” Manson said, before smiling and recalling, “We were writing a lot in Madison, and I was obsessed with Chris Cornell. Like, obsessed by him! It was around the time of ‘Black Hole Sun,’ and I used to watch him on MTV. And we ended up trying to write lyrics for ‘Fix Me Now’ … which started off being called ‘Chris Cornell.’”
“We actually have a rough version of a mix with Shirley singing, ‘Chrissss Cornelllll,’” chuckled Vig. “We should be putting that on the Internet.”
Garbage’s “Chris Cornell” demo is a lost treasure for now, but you can listen to the finished, official version of “Fix Me Now” below.
