Sing Backwards And Weep: Mark Lanegan

I posted earlier that I was listening to Lanegan reading the audiobook version of his memoir. I finally finished listening to it tonight.  It is not for the faint-hearted and it is brutally honest to a fault. I don't know if it was conceptually by design, but the endless accounts of searching for a usable vein to hit that no longer exists and the self-hating depseration and continuous misplaced rage takes on a certain repetition that makes you inhabit (albeit safely from a distance) his character.

The Screaming Trees were always a means to an end, a way out of a horrible childhood in a horrible town. Yet it was amazing to me how long this seemingly abusive relationship was able to keep going while sporadically brushing elbows with musicians he idolized and vice versa.

Some moments are filled with surprising clarity for someone in such a state, while other moments are barely mentioned in passing. It makes sense that with his love-hate relationship with the Trees he wouldn't be lovingly chronicling the way they made their music.

But for someone who has always loved his voice it was inspiring to hear how "Long Gone Day," was written in such a short amount of time, with he and Layne trading lyrics back and forth in creative experimentation. These moments are sadly fleeting, and while it's obvious that wasn't the point of the memoir, I would have loved to have known more about the music. Then again maybe the music he created post-rehab means more.

As with a lot of memoirs the back end usually hits the fast foward button to come to some kind of ending. The epilogue of his receiving the call that Layne is dead is unsatisfying, but at the same time, how else could it end? It's more just one moment on a line that at that point was at least heading upward instead of down.

It makes me think of a  prayer that observant Jews recite in the morning--while they are still in bed.

Modeh ani lefanekha melekh chai vekayam shehecḥezarta bi nishmahti b'cḥemlah, rabah emunatekha.

I give thanks before you, King living and eternal, for You have returned within me my soul with compassion; abundant is Your faithfulness.

I wonder how many times Lanegan has recited his own version.