Overview
"Hands All Over" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Featuring lyrics written by frontman Chris Cornell and music written by guitarist Kim Thayil, "Hands All Over" was released in 1990 as the second single from the band's second full-length studio album, Louder Than Love (1989). It also appeared on the band's EP Loudest Love, released in 1990. The song was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album, A-Sides and appeared on the band's compilation album Telephantasm.
Composition
"Hands All Over" features lyrics written by frontman Chris Cornell and music written by guitarist Kim Thayil. The song is in the key of D major. Thayil on the song:
What I liked about the song was that it was just one simple riff—one note, one chord—but with a lot of dynamics. In some ways it's simple and basic; in other ways, it's very sophisticated in how it was layered. We don't really have many songs that are like "Hands All Over".
Lyrics
Regarding "Hands All Over", Cornell said that "it's just sort of an environmental thing. Not strictly environmental, but mostly. It's basically about how we humans tend to screw up everything that's good enough as it is ... or everything that we're attracted to, we love to go and defile it."
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).