Steel Rain Lyrics

Lyric discussion by im_in_asia_now 

Cover art for Steel Rain lyrics by Chris Cornell

v.1

The steel rain is the take over of the world by corporations. Steel is one of the most basic fuels of industry and thus the economy and corporations. Some of the most powerful influences in the world have become the corporations rather than countries themselves. The every day person is faced with the choice of training their moods and flowering into the person acceptable in society, or drowning.

v.2 People become more like drones in today's society and the day drags on like it will never end ("The day inhales in a contagious yawn"). "Yawns are contagious" and even the day yawns because people become so weary of every day life. But people just carry a smile as if something magnificent was evolving from today's society ("And there you smile as though the sun were bouncing in the steel rain").

outro

Chris withdraws to look in from the outside, thus "into the little world" and sees that the world is even smaller than the world in his mind. He sees this tiny world spinning and it's all good, but there's something falling in the steel rain. As if the idea that steel was falling from the sky wasn't enough to convince people that something's wrong, he has to point out that it's bringing something with it. Namely, that the power of corporations and the structure of today's society and economy is bringing along with it something awful.

I disagree. It seems to be more about mood than a political statement. He talks about how there is him, another person and miles between them. He wants to control his emotions and let them flower into something more beautiful - like a song - rather than just let them bounce around all over the place and drowning himself in a heavy shower, something dark and depressing.

The sound of the song comes into play in the second verse to me. The contagious yawn and the slow-motion feel of the tempo just help. The sky could be any...