Soundgarden’s “Spoonman” Was Inspired By A Fake Demo Tape

One of Soundgarden’s biggest hits, “Spoonman”, got its inspiration from a deleted scene from the 1992 movie Singles.

In the scene, Matt Dillon’s character is selling his new demo cassette.  On the tape was a list of song titles made up by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, one of which was “Spoonman”.

Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell loved the fake titles so much he ended up turning them into real songs, including “Spoonman”, which wound up on Soundgarden’s 1994 album Superunknown.

Of course, that wasn’t the only inspiration for “Spoonman”.  It’s also based on a real-life Seattle street performer named Artis the Spoonman, who appears on the song and in the music video.