Mark Lanegan: Sing Backwards And Weep (book)

This review of Mark Lanegan's 2020 memoir Sing Backwards And Weep will read more like a straight synopsis of his life than a critique of his writing style. If you were ever thinking of reading this, then be warned, there are spoilers - having said that, if you know anything much of the man and his life story already, then nothing in here should surprise you all that much.

To begin with, in some ways it seems a little odd perhaps that the first seventeen or eighteen years of Lanegan's life are covered in scant few pages - less than a chapter in fact.

You can argue that getting to the band-related stuff in a musician's autobiography is a good idea, but we all know, it's those younger years that generally set the scene for what is to follow.

But maybe it's just as well he runs through it so swiftly. I don't need to get into the details here, so let's just say, 'broken and dysfunctional' barely covers that period....

He gets bent out of shape and dragged through the proverbial hedges before he's even done with high school; much of it self-propelled, but most of it also stemming from the crappy, broken household hell that was his day-to-day experience.

Into The Trees:

Photo: Gie Knaeps / Getty Images

At first, the Screaming Trees doesn't seem like a much better existence, or any less dysfunctional. But straight away, we get a version of the band that we will become familiar with. There are the two mountainous Connor brothers, Van (bass) and Lee (guitar), full of loathing for each other, but with a passion for music; coupled with sweet, naive, Mark Pickerel on drums.

By his early twenties, Lanegan and band are signed with the legendary SST Records, at the request of label owner (and Black Flag member) Greg Ginn himself. Weeks drag into months, the west coast segues into the east coast, fights erupt - onstage and off - and the only thing worse to him, is the thought of returning to Ellensburg, Washington; the dead end, redneck town he'd spent two decades trying to escape.

Screaming Trees: I See Stars (audio only)

Entering Nirvana:

A chance encounter with a new band on the scene that blows his mind, leads to him making a new friend for life. The band was Nirvana, and the friend a young Kurt Cobain - so the 'for life' bit was sadly not to last so long in the end. It was a strange friendship, bonded through a deep love of music, yet Cobain revered Lanegan like an older brother, while Lanegan was "awed by his genius".

There seemed to be three things that he was simultaneously despising as he reached his mid-twenties:

1. Ellensburg

2. Gary Lee Connor - a man he viewed as a spoilt narcissist

3. Himself

On that last point, as they toured the States behind Uncle Anaesthesia, the first major label album they had done for Epic, they hit Chicago. He was already in a bad place, and despite knowing it was the worst thing to do, he hit the bottle. Hard.

His five years of sobriety was down the pan and became a tour that was increasingly about handling his excessive drinking, and frequent blackouts. The tour ended early and he was poured onto a plane home from Florida.

Worse was to come. While the band reached its peak commercially with Sweet Oblivion, Lanegan's world was getting darker. The record didn't reach the heights of their friends and peers like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains or the mega hype surrounding Nirvana, but it sold healthily and the main single, Nearly Lost You, got some attention.

Mid-90s Trees, with Lanegan (centre)

The trouble was, to put a limit on the non-stop drinking and blackouts, he turned to heroin... The early 90s were a literal endless cocktail of hard drugs, booze, and anything he could get his hands on when the other things were hard to get hold of.

Screaming Trees: For Celebrations Past (audio only)

On Repeat:

The middle section (and to be honest, much of the end section) is a somewhat repetitive feast of poor choices - booze, drugs, women, the odd bit of music - rinse and repeat. But this does give us an insight into a life descending into the very pits of existence, and how that must feel. The constant excuses, the reasoning, the "it'll be just fine" and "at least heroin means I'm drinking less" mentality.

It is often a bleak read, when you realise that someone is in a place that they don't see a way out of, and perhaps, don't feel they need to get out of. They have produced a 'new normal' for themselves, and everything is about convincing everyone else this normal is okay.

In The Club:

A moment of respite, of sorts, comes when he gets to meet and befriend his hero, Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club (who happens to have been another twisted wreck I am very fond of) - a similarly isolated, irregular contradiction of a person. Like with Kurt, he connects, but because of his spiralling condition, doesn't necessarily know how to be there for Pierce when needed. His heartbreak is palpable, reaching out from the page, when Pierce succumbs to his own early end in 1996.

The Gun Club: Carry Home (audio only - apparently Lanegan's favourite of their songs and one he would later cover)

It is also sad to note how, from within his drug induced prison, he has such a high level of disdain for his Trees bandmates. He was guilty of being his own worst critic, both with the Trees and of his solo work, but it was always way better than he ever gave himself (and the others) credit for. Perhaps this was giving him a reason to dislike those around him?

Redemption?

In the end, the book closes with some level of personal redemption. The prison was getting more cramped; no one wanted to hang out with a junkie, the police were on his tail (he was stealing stuff to pay for drugs to sell) and wanted him out of town - to become someone else's problem. He finally took up an offer for help.

Courtney Love, rightly or wrongly, has been vilified by many over the years. Did she play a part, active or passive, in Kurt Cobain's death? The jury is probably out on that front, but maybe her offer to help a friend and fellow musician who'd also fallen down the pit of addiction, was some sort of atonement?

The book is largely done by around 1998, but there is further concluding heartbreak when he hears of Layne Staley's (Alice In Chains) death, another close friend who got in too deep and lost.

As he leaves a series of rehab hospital wards, halfway houses and construction jobs, he gets picked up by another reformed addict, in the shape of Duff McKagen, once of Guns n Roses, who offers Lanegan a helping hand, as does a former record company contact, who picks him up for another shot at music. The advance for another solo record also helps him clear a debt with the tax man. Former Trees bandmate, Josh Homme, is also there for him, bringing him into his latest band, the Queens Of The Stone Age, where Lanegan stays from 2000 to 2005.

Postscript:

Photo: Sylvain LeFevre / Getty Images

After the book is done, we should fill in a few chronological gaps. We know that there was a relapse and a coma in 2004, before another rehab stint in 2006.

Fortunately, his voice was not lost to us, and he would go on to release ten more studio albums and several collaborations with Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian. He would write books and poetry, marry twice and eventually leave us in February 2022, with no precise cause ever given. And that's right - it's none of our business - he spent so many years dragging his private life through the world (and the gutter), when he'd put that behind

him and seemingly found some peace in Ireland with his second wife.

Mark Lanegan: I Am The Wolf (live on KEXP, 2014 - truly haunting, and a highly autobiographical account of his isolation and being an outsider - also the title of a collection of his lyrics and essays)

He left us with a couple of fantastic Screaming Trees records and some soulful, often dark, solo work - and that voice.....