Birth Ritual was recorded during the 1991 Badmotorfinger sessions, but set aside. The demo can be found on the 2016 25th anniversary re-release. The riff was written by Matt Cameron and Chris Cornell said that this is one of SG’s favorite songs!

They made an appearance in the 1992 Cameron Crowe film Singles, performing this live. It's first release was on that soundtrack. The 2017 25th anniversary re-issue included the performance in whole. The next release would be on 2010's Telephantasm and 2014's Echo of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across the Path compilations.

This guitar tuning affectionaly was called digga digga by Kim Thayil: Because the low E string moves down to D and the A string to G. With the other strings remaining in standard tuning, which leaves us in DGDGbe. See? DGDG - Digga digga! The time signature can be thought of as 7/4, though you may also split it up into alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4.

The intro was recorded played "forwards" and edited to play "backwards", so what we hear is in reverse. We can replicate a similar effect through arpeggiating and alternate picking. For the verses & outro, resist the urge to chug the open high D and G strings or slide up to the 5th fret on the low D string after ringing out the G7sus chord. I isolated the guitar track and that is only Ben Shepherd playing on the bass.

Some people say this is SG’s most “metal” song. The guitar part is pretty berserk in how hectic it is. For the playalong, I edited together the rhythm and lead guitars of the intro, the bridge, solo, chorus and verse/outro to demonstrate all parts. A chorus and a wah pedal were needed.