Can you remember where you were when you heard that an inspirational musician had passed and how it affected you? I’m talking about a loss that was a gut punch and that you felt deep into your core. Maybe it was David Bowie, Tina Turner, Prince, Chris Cornell, or Sinead O’Connor?
Ultimately, a time will come when names of Pop Music’s biggest stars will pass, and even though we don’t personally know them, we feel their loss emotionally as their craft enriches our lives. Strangely, we also feel connected, almost as if we know them. It will be sad to lose icons like Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Stevie Wonder. I say that because they have been part of my life since I was alive. A world with them is all I have ever known. For this Gen X’er, a life without Sir Paul is an odd thought, and I am not even a big Beatles fan. Paul McCartney is also 81 years old, and when somebody dies in their advanced years, we are saddened, but realistically, we also expect their inevitable passing. They have lived out their natural life cycle, and while I may feel an emotional tug due to their loss and reflect on what they have given to the world, I also understand it as a life well lived.
However, when somebody leaves us at a younger age, it’s shocking and makes us question our mortality. Even if we don’t know the person, we understand the gravity of their passing. By nature of what they do, when an artist dies, their legacy will forever live through their creations. Strangely, we also selfishly mourn their death as we know they will no longer make art for us to enjoy, nor will we have the chance to see them perform again.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard Mark Lanegan passed away. I just said goodbye to one of my art classes and looked at my phone. I had several texts, one that just said, “RIP Mark Lanegan.” I immediately felt a sense of tingling numbness and wiry butterflies in my chest. My nerves began to tingle, and my stomach dropped. I went to my computer, typed his name, and saw the headlines confirming his death. My heart immediately sank, and despite not knowing Mark Lanegan, I felt real emotions when hearing that he was no longer with us.
Lanegan was only 57 when he died on February 22, 2022. To this day, his cause of death still has not been revealed. However, that detail is irrelevant because it doesn’t matter how he died. The fact is he did, and the world is a less inspiring place without him.
Lanegan may not be a household name like Prince, Tina Turner, or David Bowie. However, he created some of the moodiest, broodiest, and most gut-wrenching music of the last 30+ years. I rate him as one of the greatest artists of my generation. He had a deep, baritone voice that was pure whiskey, cigarettes, pain, and a life filled with trauma and addiction. His voice became the passport that transported his listeners to dark and uncomfortable spaces deep within his mind and our own. It had the power to lift you out of your sorrow, but it could just as easily drop you into his bottle of bourbon, swish you around, and make you drunk on both his and your tears. As numbing as a heavy painkiller, his words came from deep within his soul. They also had a brutal honesty that acknowledged pain and sadness while intoxicating their listeners with his emotional rawness.
A tall, scrappy, long-haired kid from the logging town of Ellenburg, Washington, Lanegan initially rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Screaming Trees. Of all the Seattle-based “grunge” bands, the Trees were also my favorite. They were less metal than Alice In Chains, not as punk as Nirvana & Mudhoney, and were more psychedelic than Soundgarden. They were also considerably more raw and less commercial than Pearl Jam. And, on top of it all was Lanegan’s voice. Their albums, especially ‘Sweet Oblivion’ and ‘Dust,’ were records that soared to the top of my list of favorite albums by artists of my generation.
As much as I liked the Screaming Trees, it was also clear that Lanegan was confined artistically by their limited sound. Although he remained with the Trees from 1986 to 2000, Lanegan also released several solo albums and collaborated with many artists between 1990 and 2021. It’s his solo albums where Lanegan’s creativity became ignited, and he developed into his own as a powerful and eloquent artist. Although these solo albums all received critical recognition and high praise from peers alike, they had relatively moderate commercial success. Thus, news of his death made little impact on much of the mainstream media.
Lanegan is one of the few artists whose talent also never diminished in brightness as he aged. His catalog stretches three decades, and all his solo releases are consistently full of extraordinarily melancholic and deeply emotional songs sung with a passion many musicians could only dream of possessing. For years, Mark sadly drowned his demons in hard liquor and a heavy drug haze, but when he died, he had been clean and sober for over a decade. Yet, it was his honest humility and vulnerability toward his addiction that would often come out in his lyrics. Like the gloom of a dark Seattle winter with the deafening roar of seasick waves crashing the shore, his pain and ours become one.
From the dive down to the wet
Usually, I fall, tell myself
It doesn't matter anyway
That this is just another day
I don't speak the truth too much
Hear the roars and the hush
And the cold chill of time
And I'm happy murderin' my mind
Oh, I remember your voice
Turning' around and around and around in my head
Now it's just like you said
Everything inside is dead
Having seen Mark in concert many times, he commanded a mysterious presence. He was always focused on the songs, clutching the microphone with his tattooed hands, eyes closed, and often performing in heavy shadow bathed in a red or blue light. He was never active on stage, and rarely did he speak to the crowd. Yet, he was mesmerizing to watch as his voice and songs had the power of heavy narcotics, lifting you to the heavens with tears in your eyes as you drifted away with him.
Over the years, my wife and I have probably listened to Mark Lanegan’s solo albums together more than any other band or artist. With his songs as accompaniment, we often enjoy an evening drink while listening to his music. In May 2020, Lanegan’s twelfth and final solo album, ‘Straight Songs of Sorrow,’ came out. It was written as a companion to his autobiography, "Sing Backwards & Weep," which Anthony Bourdain convinced him to write. The album quickly became our soundtrack to the stressful, anxious times during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. With much of our city closed, my wife and I would pour a few drinks into a water bottle, pack a Bluetooth speaker, and ride our bikes to the river. Sitting on a dock with the skyline in front of us, the hum of summer evening traffic from the bridge above, we would listen repeatedly to ‘Straight Songs of Sorrow.’ While its songs played, we had many deep conversations as we watched the sunset and the city lights reflect and dance across the river surface.
After hearing the report of Mark’s death, it was my wife whom I immediately texted to share the sad news. Despite not personally knowing him, we both felt an enormous sense of grief and loss. Lanegan’s songs are now intrinsically woven into the fabric of our relationship, and I am thankful that his music and voice will forever be part of us. There is a myth that when somebody dies, their souls become stars. Since his death, when I look into the night sky and see the stars, I think of “Dark Mark” and can hear him sing…
The sun bleeds in monochrome
Sirens in the air
Through misery and ritual
A newborn star appears
I'm with ya. Screaming Trees did the greatest rock show I ever saw, around 1993, in my hometown of Cleveland, OH.
Mark was the towering, slightly bemused ringmaster on that occasion; presiding over a raucous, 3/4- packed house and various wild side goings-on that night. That Voice was in full effect, tho'; stunning us into silence in more than one moment, the ache of it in "Dollar Bill" (which was getting a lil bit of radio
play at the time) palpable. I've never forgotten it or him, and never will.