As with most Soundgarden lyrics, there is a mixture of representative symbolism, (mostly) meaningless wordplay, and clever concepts posed for cleverness's sake.
The first verse is more representative: obvious references to Soundgarden's reunion, perhaps of coming back to Seattle, of the journey they've been on.
The chorus might deal with the many hats and musical styles Cornell has tried on, and specifically how the world has reacted to all that. I also think there's a lot of just "rock n roll" sounding words that are there to sound cool.
The bridge is more interesting. "Kilos through keyholes", "widows through windows" evokes (perhaps?) the dark private lives of a lot of these Seattle musicians, and the widows a few of them (most notably, Kurt Cobain) left behind. Pilots through eyelets might just be fun rhyming nonsense or it could refer to the shrinking and flying sensations one gets on certain mixtures of drugs...I imagine feeling like I'm floating and then feeling like I'm shrinking, small enough that I can float right through an eyelet on my shoe. Tankards, flagons, snifters, and flutes are all, to some extent or another, paraphernelia evocative of late 19th century drug use.
As with most Soundgarden lyrics, there is a mixture of representative symbolism, (mostly) meaningless wordplay, and clever concepts posed for cleverness's sake.
The first verse is more representative: obvious references to Soundgarden's reunion, perhaps of coming back to Seattle, of the journey they've been on.
The chorus might deal with the many hats and musical styles Cornell has tried on, and specifically how the world has reacted to all that. I also think there's a lot of just "rock n roll" sounding words that are there to sound cool.
The bridge is more interesting. "Kilos through keyholes", "widows through windows" evokes (perhaps?) the dark private lives of a lot of these Seattle musicians, and the widows a few of them (most notably, Kurt Cobain) left behind. Pilots through eyelets might just be fun rhyming nonsense or it could refer to the shrinking and flying sensations one gets on certain mixtures of drugs...I imagine feeling like I'm floating and then feeling like I'm shrinking, small enough that I can float right through an eyelet on my shoe. Tankards, flagons, snifters, and flutes are all, to some extent or another, paraphernelia evocative of late 19th century drug use.