What kind of covers, you may wonder. Lots to choose from. Their are the salacious kind for instance. Or at least how they turn that way in my mind. One of those, sitting across from Soundgarden’s singer/guitarist/lyricist, the late Chris Cornell, in a hotel living room. Upper floor, LA, sunshine streaming in the windows. He, backlit, golden (my memory painted to my liking). Me, facing him. His mouth was moving although I was not actually listening to the words floating out so distracted was I by his, well, his everything, really. This is why they invented tape recorders. So that distracted journalists could get lost a little bit (and also that libel issue and all). After hours (actually maybe only minutes), Chris’s wife and manager, Susan Silver, stuck her head around the corner to see how we were doing. She was (no doubt still is) a really cool lady, so as envious as I was of her being the one between and betwixt those Cornell covers, I couldn’t really pull off any dislike. That days interview would be sent sideways after a companion-piece dinner with another very cool woman, Ann Magnuson, mainly because these two personalities—the Sundgarden variety and the Magnuson manner—were not at all compatible. This was my first experience with having to withstand anger from a band I liked. I’d been yelled at a couple of times before by bands I didn’t much care for when I’d written bad reviews about their albums and although I was often gutted when it happened, this time I felt destroyed. Susan had come by the magazine to see the photos running with the piece, then seen the headline and read the first paragraph, at which point she came to find me, standing in my doorway and asking, “how could you?” My whole self fell right through the floor. Or at least that’s what I wanted to happen. Between the covers of the magazine, the band she loved, that I loved, that many many many people loved were being sent up in a way that was humorous but also felt like a betrayal.

What were we saying?

Words tucked between chords, Lyrics. What happens between the heart and the head. The words were not always clear on meaning. I mean, I would attempt to unpack them like building blocks and put them together in all sorts of ways to spell out what I thought they might mean. But really, the words were more Rorschach than Realism, test pattern rather than transcript. What stays with me more is where I was when those words and sounds entered me. Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ, with my friend Chris. Soundgarden singing “Hands All Over” two feet away while I slowly melted, went deaf and dumb (but not blind. Oh no, not blind) as sweat dripped and sound rippled. I’m right back there now. We all have those aural trips, right?

Whenever I think of a vacation I took to Santorini in August 1991, Metallica’s so-called Black album and Nirvana’s Nevermind will always play right alongside the incredible sunset over the caldera and the immense amount of glass-breakage that happened late-night in the bars (very passionate people, those Greeks).

By the time I was letting myself slip between the proverbial & literal covers of Dennis’s life, I’d lost the breadcrumb trail of words set to music. But he’s a man for whom words are everything so Ray Lamontagne‘s Trouble and Till the Sun Turns Black; Ben Folds “The Luckiest” these were the sounds and the stories that defined us. And while I was curious and open to it, I was also having a helluva time letting myself go where those words wanted to take me. There was fear of feeling too much and music will do that to a person. But I did. Go there. Although I still struggle with it and I’m still trying to figure out why. Or how. Or something. Luckily Dennis is patient, so that when we drove down the most stunning bit of California coast on my birthday (you know the section of coastline that’s on all the postcards) and listened to Led Zeppelin and I got all nostalgic, then squirmy, then annoyed at my nostalgic, then finally gave in and started singing along, although not loudly, I think maybe he felt there was some triumph there. In this I’m glad to have a partner in figuring out how the words work.

Next week: Between the Covers: part 2. The paper edition.