Songfacts®:

• This song is about a street artist named Artis the Spoonman, who played the spoons on the streets of Seattle, where Soundgarden formed. Artis played his spoons on the song, and is credited on the album (Spoons: Artis The Spoonman). He is also featured in the video.
  
  When Songfacts spoke with Artis in 2013, he said he earned a flat fee of $1,000 for performing on the song, and another $7,000 to appear in the video. Describing how Soundgarden contacted him, he said: "In 1992, they had me do a tweener [a performance between acts] between them and Melvins. And their manager at the time, Susan Silver, she told me Chris [Cornell] is writing a song, 'Spoonman,' and would I like to record on it when it's done. And so in '93, almost a year and a half later, they called me and we went in the studio that day and recorded it. Went through four takes and that was that. Two hours. That was the recording session."
• Pearl Jam bass player Jeff Ament came up with the title. Along with Eddie Vedder, Layne Staley and various other grunge forebears, he was in the 1992 movie Singles, which stars Matt Dillon as a musician named Cliff Poncier. A prop in the film is Poncier's solo tape; Ament contrived the song titles, one of which was "Spoon Man." (At the time, Cornell was in the group Temple Of The Dog ("Hunger Strike") with Ament and Stone Gossard, who went on to form Pearl Jam.)
  
  When Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell, who also appears in the film, saw the tape, he recorded actual songs with those titles just for fun. The 5-song recording was pressed to about 5000 CDs which were used to promote the film. This original version of the song was recorded on a 4-track tape to emulate how Poncier would have done it. It's very raw.
  
  When it came time to record Superunknown, Cornell made a polished version with Soundgarden, this time as "Spoonman." Ament is credited on the album for coming up with the title.
  
  Cornell had yet to meet Artis when he wrote the song.
• This won the 1995 Grammy for Best Metal Performance. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Adrian - Brookings, SD
• This song is often credited with turning Artis the Spoonman into a bit of a celebrity, but he was already done some high profile gigs, including some performances with Frank Zappa in 1981. When we asked him how this song changed his life, Artis replied: "You know, it's kind of embarrassing. It's not weird, though. It was an honor. I do believe in luck, but even that's got some science. It wasn't luck for me. I'd been playing already 25 years. When they asked me to do that, I had already done the Letterman show, I'd been to Japan, England, Germany. I was in Australia, Bali, Singapore - I'd been places all over the world performing, I'd been called and paid and brought there to those places and doing national TV and stuff.
  
  So it wasn't anything like Soundgarden making the Spoonman. What Soundgarden did was another bump. I'd already gotten a hell of a lot of national coverage and I'd played a lot of national gigs and all over the country. But that bump was tremendous, a huge honor."
• This would certainly be the most famous song about a street performer if it wasn't for the 1970 hit "Mr. Bojangles," which is about a street dancer the songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker met in jail. "Spoonman," however, features a performance by its subject. As Artis the Spoonman tells us: "There's nothing ever to regret about 'Spoonman.' That's unusually incredible, remarkable. Elvis didn't have a Grammy Award-winning song featuring him about him. Nobody did. Nobody at all. There isn't anybody. Not even that dancer, Bojangles. So it's a huge honor, what's happened to me."
• Talking about what he's trying to convey about Artis in this song, Chris Cornell said it was "about the paradox of who he is and what people perceive him as."
  
  "He's a street musician, but when he's playing on the street, he is given a value and judged completely wrong by someone else," Cornell continued. "They think he's a street person, or he's doing this because he can't hold down a regular job. They put him a few pegs down on the social ladder because of how they perceive someone who dresses differently. The lyrics express the sentiment that I much more easily identify with someone like Artis."
• Soundgarden used this to open many of their live shows between 1996 and 1997.
• Bassist Ben Shepard sang backup vocals, like the lines, "They beat the rhythm with their bones." His voice was sent through Fender Twin Reverb. It's his favorite song on the album.
• This was the first single from the album, which went on to sell over five million copies. The B-side on the single is "Fresh Tendrils." A special remix is included as the B-side on the singles for "Black Hole Sun" and "My Wave."
• Artis the Spoonman didn't get rich off this song for four reasons:
  1) He got just a small flat fee for performing on the song and appearing in the video, so he didn't get any royalties from the song (the only songwriter credited on it is Chris Cornell).
  
  2) He was very particular about where he would perform and who he would shill for. He refused to play bars or any other venues where the audience wasn't there specifically to see him. He did do some commercials for Dairy Queen, but that was his only corporate association.
  
  3) He didn't pursue opportunities, as he avoids self-promotion. "It's embarrassing for me to pursue a show," he told us.
  
  4) He wasn't shrewd financially. "I'd take funds for a show that I said yes to, but I just take what they pay me. I took what they paid me and I didn't have a lawyer or anything," he said.
• Like the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and Pink Floyd's "Money," parts of this song are in 7/4 time. Soundgarden frequently used odd time signatures in their songs. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Adrian - Gettysburg, PA
• Chris Cornell wrote a rough version of this song during the filming of Singles that can be heard in the movie in a scene where a Citizen Dick poster is being put up on a telephone pole.
• This song appeared in the Playstation 2 game ATV: Offroad Fury. You are able to listen to it while racing. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  John - Madison, WI