The weight of Waiting: Chris Cornell, Beckett, and the Human Condition
The enduring power of Chris Cornell’s music, particularly songs like “Like a Stone,” lies in it’s haunting exploration of waiting – a theme strikingly echoed in Samuel Beckett’s existential play, Waiting for Godot, and ultimately, in the tragic arc of Cornell’s own life. Both the play and the song capture a profound sense of suspended time, a desperate clinging too hope in the face of an uncertain future, and the agonizing reality that the object of that waiting may never arrive.
Cornell, who debuted with Soundgarden in 1987 and continued through projects like Audioslave, openly battled depression and anxiety throughout his life. This internal struggle permeated his work, manifesting as a lyrical preoccupation with isolation, regret, and the search for meaning. His untimely death in may 2017, found in his Detroit hotel room after a world tour, wasn’t simply a tragedy. However, a deeper examination of his life and work reveals a different narrative – a culmination of “internal time” finally surfacing as an external event. The recurring themes in his songs – darkness, weight, isolation, prayer, forgiveness, and regret – seemed to foreshadow his fate in retrospect. While it’s dangerous to suggest his songs predicted his death, it’s clear that the unresolved emotions within his music persisted until the vrey end.
The speaker in “Like a Stone” clung to time, declaring “until you come,” and anchored himself to the present, assuming the eventual arrival of the awaited figure. But that arrival remains perpetually unconfirmed. Waiting, in this context, isn’t about hope, but about maintaining a state of existence, a “final form of continuing existence.” Similarly, in Waiting for Godot, waiting is never rewarded, arrival is perpetually delayed, and questions remain unanswered. The play’s stark structure mirrors the essential uncertainties of the human condition.
Cornell’s life, too, lacked a definitive resolution. He achieved success, received critical acclaim, and profoundly impacted countless listeners, yet the inner questions lingered, and the wait continued. Ultimately, Estragon, Vladimir, the narrator of “Like a Stone,” and Chris Cornell are all bound by the same structure: the inability to leave, to finish, to escape the relentless pull of waiting for something that may never come. And as we reflect on their stories, we are compelled to ask ourselves: what are we currently waiting for, and what time are we enduring in the hope of its arrival?
