Chris Cornell’s ‘Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart’: Why Did YouTube Remove Clip From Singer’s Official Channel?
It’s been nearly a month since Chris Cornell committed suicide just a few hours after his band Soundgarden’s last Detroit concert. And with his death still a troubling thought for his fans, friends, and family, it would seem that YouTube has removed his final music video, “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart,” due to the coincidental, yet shocking parallels to his suicide by hanging.
A report from Alternative Nation took a look back at the video for Chris Cornell’s “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart,” a 2015 solo release from the Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman. The Jessie Hill-directed video features Cornell and Hollywood actor Eric Roberts playing the roles of Old West prisoners about to be executed, and in a scene many believe is hard to watch in hindsight, a young boy, played by Cornell’s son Christopher, places a noose around his real-life father’s neck. But Cornell’s character doesn’t die, and he ultimately ends up marrying the woman who saved his life by distracting the hangman.
Although the video doesn’t actually depict Chris Cornell’s character’s death, “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” appears to have been recently taken down by YouTube. Alternative Nation speculated that this is due to the now-sensitive content, and how Cornell’s mock hanging may have foreshadowed his actual and fatal hanging last month.
Chris Cornell's final, morbid music video has been taken offline https://t.co/h8fUymDvxD pic.twitter.com/WCdUy7MpOl
— SPIN (@SPIN) June 13, 2017
As media outlets have only realized this week that the video was removed, SPIN added that it’s unclear when YouTube made the decision. Still, it may have been after Variety interviewed Eric Roberts, and embedded the video in its article, which is dated May 19. An attempt to play the clip results in a message stating that the video is “unavailable.”
As of this writing, Chris Cornell’s “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” is only available in lyric video form on the singer’s Vevo channel on YouTube. However, a YouTube user re-uploaded the original music video on Thursday, June 8, possibly in reaction to YouTube pulling it from the Cornell Vevo channel. Apparently, it’s the only copy of the video that remains available on YouTube, and many fans appear to be unhappy over the decision to remove the official clip.
“Vevo took down the official video for this song WTF is that about??,” ranted one commenter.
“There were literally no negative comments about his death whatsoever on that video’s comment section! It was all positive! I could not find any other copy of this video downloaded still on here either, except for this one!!”
Despite the inclusion of the word “noose” in the song’s title and chorus, Soundgarden’s 1996 hit “Pretty Noose” remains up on Soundgarden’s Vevo channel, though it bears mentioning that the music video simply features the band performing. This is, however, an alternate clip, as the original music video was banned due to its dark content – Cornell’s character being revealed as a woman’s killer.
Given the circumstances behind his death, do you agree or disagree with YouTube’s move to take down the video for Chris Cornell’s “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart”?
[Featured Image by Cooper Neill/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures]
