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"Rusty Cage" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, "Rusty Cage" was released in 1992 as the third single from the band's third studio album, Badmotorfinger (1991). The song became an instant hit and was released as a single in several different formats. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides.
On "Rusty Cage" the bottom E string is tuned all the way down to B, with Thayil stating that "the string was all wobbly but it had a good effect." The song features a striking tempo change towards the end of the song, going from using 4/4 in its chorus to a repeated pattern of 3/4, 2/4, and 5/4 in its coda. Thayil has said that Soundgarden usually did not consider the time signature of a song until after the band had written it, and said that the use of odd meters was "a total accident."
"Rusty Cage" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. Guitarist Kim Thayil on the song:
The tuning on that song was pretty nutty. It's recorded with a wah wah in the low position used as a filter. That was the first time we did anything like that. It was Chris' idea; he wanted to get that weird tone that you can't really dial in on an amp. But if you use the wah wah as a filter, it gets an incredibly weird sound. And if you listen to that riff, especially if you've heard the original demos of it, it almost sounds backward.
"Rusty Cage" was released as a single in 1992 in various versions with a previously unreleased B-side titled "Touch Me". Outside the United States, the single was released commercially in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The song gained considerable airtime on alternative rock radio stations.
"Rusty Cage" was part of the soundtrack of the 1994 bike racing game, Road Rash, which received 3DO's 1994 "Soundtrack of the Year" award. The song appeared on the fictional radio station "Radio X" in the 2004 video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. However, these versions are all 1 minute and 43 seconds shorter than the album version. The majority of these versions end as the breakdown at the end of the song comes in. It is also featured in the 2008 racing game, Burnout Paradise, where the full version is intact.
The music video for "Rusty Cage" was directed by Eric Zimmerman, who had previously directed the "Jesus Christ Pose" music video for the band. The video features Soundgarden performing the song in a white room amid scenes of the band members being chased through a forest by dogs, farmers, and a man in a truck. The video was released in March 1992. It gained considerable airtime on MTV.
A performance of "Rusty Cage" can be found on the Motorvision home video release.
"Rusty Cage" was covered by Johnny Cash on the 1996 album, Unchained, which won a Grammy Award for Best Country Album. During at least one live performance by Soundgarden (early November 1996 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois), Cornell introduced the song with a dedication to Cash. Cash's version was featured in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Bull" in 2008. More recently, the song has been covered by the Chicago, Illinois quartet Soil.
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