Sing Backwards and Weep: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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Lanegan was a prime candidate for becoming a compulsive user, but it’s not until late in the book that we learn of the gruelling array of traumatic abuse he experienced as a boy, which explains the deep well of rage that ran through his psyche and why he was thrilled eventually to find a numbing substance that dulled his painful memories.

Sing Backwards and Weep: Mayhem, music and drugs Sing Backwards and Weep: Mayhem, music and drugs

High points for me were the stories about Mark’s friendships with Kurt, Layne, and others. There were even a few comical tidbits including one with Chris Cornell that made me smile. Interesting how Mark described his running out patience of embarrassment he experienced on stage with the Trees... Yet inflicted the embarrassment to himself everyday on the streets. This book chronicles about a decade in Lanegan’s life in Seattle and abroad — from the mid-80s onward — in ultra-high definition, and if you’re looking for detailed retellings of sordid scenes with some of the key characters from that highly romanticised time in popular music, there are certainly plenty of those.

Hamnett, Alun (May 2020). "MARK LANEGAN – STRAIGHT SONGS OF SORROW". Record Collector . Retrieved May 23, 2020.

Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan review - The Guardian

Lanegan was born in Ellensburg, in Washington state, in 1964. His family was “from a long line of coal miners, loggers, bootleggers, South Dakotan dirt farmers, criminals, convicts, and hill-billies of the roughest, most ignorant sort”. Readers familiar with his music might already conclude: he was born to be Mark Lanegan. It might be poignant to end this review with a set of lyrics from the Screaming Trees' song For Celebrations Past that I had in my mind when I awoke one morning a number of years ago: The bottom dropped out of my heart. Tears were instantaneous, even as disbelief had me shaking my head, whispering, "No." I always thought I'd have a chance to see another show, to capture a "remember me?" moment, a laugh and a hug. Lanegan was close friends with the singers in those two bands — Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley respectively — and, like both of those men, he carries inside him a powerful, singular instrument, with his baritone style occupying the deepest end of the male vocal spectrum. And, like both of his friends, eventually he would become desperately mired in drug addiction. ABOUT USLouder Than War is a music, culture and media publication headed by The Membranes & Goldblade frontman John Robb. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net.Have I scared you away? Don't let that be: if the 90s Seattle music scene moved you, this is the Genesis of its Bible. A Seattle that no longer exists, for good in some regards, but deeply awful in others. I'm glad I knew it when and left before the city became what it is now. You will meet nearly everyone from that bygone era here, in grand and tragic style. Mark's stories are gritty, arch, fascinating and not a punch is pulled. Perry, Kevin EG (May 7, 2020). "Mark Lanegan – 'Straight Songs of Sorrow' review: grunge survivor shares music that salves the soul". NME . Retrieved May 23, 2020.

Sing Backwards and Weep – Book Review Mark Lanegan – Sing Backwards and Weep – Book Review

This brutally honest memoir covers Lanegan's early life through to the full span of the Screaming Trees including coverage of his first two solo albums and his friendship with Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley. Layne Staley and Mark once allowed a woman to drink water they had used to clean their dirty needles Great survivor: Lanegan on stage with the Screaming Trees in 1993. Photograph: Lindsay Brice/Getty Images A gritty, gripping memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, Soulsavers), chronicling his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the '80s and '90s.A day or two later, Rosemary called me, her voice shaking with emotion, and delivered the news. Kurt’s body had been found in the small room above his garage—the same room at which I had stood at the foot of earlier—the victim of an apparent suicide. A medical examiner judged his death to have taken place the same day we were at the house looking for him.

Straight Songs of Sorrow - Wikipedia Straight Songs of Sorrow - Wikipedia

Lanegan does recount other aspects of his life in the Screaming Trees and his early solo career. He was good friends with Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. He often supplied them with drugs. He also supplied Courtney Love. Some of the more humorous aspects of his memoir was his runins with Al Jourgensen of Ministry and Liam Gallagher of Oasis. Lanegan almost pummeled both of them--and they clearly would have deserved it. Unlike the typical stereotype of the brooding non-confrontational artist, Lanegan is a big dude and was a scrapper from very early on in his life. Often a turbulent home life contributes to that kind of disposition. Lanegan's relationship with his mother makes it clear why he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. All of that’s compounded by amateurish writing. If I’d had the guy in a class, I’d push him on some of the sentence-crafting basics. He overuses adjectives, not just larding them on but allowing them to fill in for the substance of analysis. I honestly can’t tell one of the women he almost loves from another. They’re all ‘sensitive’ and ‘soul-tingling,’ but there’s little to distinguish them beyond the adjectives.Prosvetljenje, skidanje s droge i pranje od prošlog života dolazi u jednom šturom poglavlju, ne njegovom željom i namerom već bežanjem od većih problema, u situaciji da se u potpunosti predaje dobroj volji poznanika koje jeste ili nije zajebao do koske ili stranaca koji ga poštuju kao umetnika. Lanegan je toga svestan i prihvata to ali na nihilističan način, kao lutriju sudbine, ni po čemu bolju ili lošiju od anonimne smrti u jarku. Ovog puta izgleda ima pameti da ne grize ruku koja ga hrani. Knjiga se završava pre vaskrsnuća karijere, a to je deo njegovog života koji me više zanima, tako da se nadam nastavku. Late in the afternoon, I got a call from the entertainment lawyer I shared with Kurt, Rosemary Carroll, an extremely smart, no-nonsense woman who happened to be the ex-wife of celebrated writer/musician Jim Carroll. Reading this, it’s not clear to me that Lanegan has learned anything. Props to his punk sensibility that he doesn’t give us much of the “and then I got clean” version – though there is a strange near-final religious epiphany that he describes without exploring. Mark was lead singer of the Screaming Trees, a second-tier grunge band that was perpetually in the shadows of other more popular bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains. Mark was close friends with the lead singers of these bands--Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. All three were terrible drug fiends. Somehow Mark is the only survivor. Lanegan eventually stumbled his way down the latter path. The very last word he writes here is what he became: clean. We are all the beneficiaries of that outcome, not only because his singular artistic voice is still with us today, and still creating and performing, but because he was able to write this extraordinary, unforgettable book. It is right up there with the very best memoirs I have read, by a musician or anyone else.