Sing Backwards And Weep, chapters 4-6

 4:  "If You Start Again, It Will Be As Though You'd Never Stopped"

Lanegan doesn't really go into the reasons why he refuses to tour or do any promotion for The Winding Sheet.  I already mentioned that he seems to just be one of those people who'll be constantly conflicted about his own work.  Sure enough, he'd "done my own record, written all the words and the bulk of the music myself... Although I felt the songs weren't great, they were a true representation of myself and had some personal meaning" [emphasis mine].  That turns the narrative back to Screaming Trees, which he's decided is still his main gig, and his ongoing attempts to make that into something that he can be proud of.

 

We actually get an extended discussion of the making of the Trees' major-label debut, Uncle Anesthesia.  This part has both some of the more enjoyable writing in the book so far, in which he talks about how much he enjoyed working with producer Terry Dale and coproducer Chris Cornell.  Cornell, in Lanegan's telling, was basically brought on because of a certain singer's paranoia about going major-label leading to them sounding like a hair-metal band, and has a sense of humor and general goofiness that he doesn't display so much to the world.

 

Lanegan appreciates being able to put together a big-sounding record with professional help, but... the music itself still doesn't speak to him.  He sums it up as "more of the same shit we'd always done.  It just sounded better."  Here we get to one of the uglier passages in the book so far, in which he takes a chance to again unload on how deeply he hates his own band's music, and in particular its auteur, Lee Connor.  While conceding that Lee's songwriting, besides being prolific, is catchy and rocking, making it an obvious choice for the Trees to continue using his songs, Lanegan goes back to the well of insult after insult, belittling Lee as a song factory of a loser with no social life, no authenticity, no originality.  Dude, you're the one who chose to keep trying to make this band work for five (and counting) records, despite having another creative outlet that seemed to be going places.

 

Now, the argument could certainly be made that Lanegan is deliberately writing without overt adult hindsight, putting himself in the place that he was at that age.  Thing is, in other chapters that are not devoted to slagging off former bandmates, he does throw in little bits of perspective from twenty-five years older, so the fact that he refrains from doing so here doesn't sit well.  The closest we get is some forced poetic writing about how he keeps trying to give the Trees upward mobility so that he can keep running from himself or whatever.

 

The title of the chapter, though, doesn't refer to Uncle Anesthesia, but to the addict's bit of wisdom from his early court-ordered rehab days - "when you are an alcoholic and quit drinking, even if you stay sober for years, if you begin again, it will be as though you'd never stopped."  Sure enough, on a night in Chicago in which shortly after a terrifying van crash that has him concussed and banged up, on top of some viral illnesses that cause him to lose his voice, leading to a terrible show in which he can't perform, our man decides he needs a drink, and he's back to being a blackout drunk.  We get quite a lot of his worldview - in a world in which just because he's sober by force of will doesn't mean that he's not as dark and destructive and miserable as he's ever been - he's ready to give up and die.  And... it leads to some really pleasant oblivion.  During an early binge, he looks in the mirror and likes what he sees.  The regrets will soon come fast and furious, but still later; that's a problem for sometime after that first buzz.

 

5:  "Meatloaf"

Just a few anecdotes of life on the road, including a strange encounter with Flea's father that gets Lanegan from horny to creeped out very quickly, and a memory of pissing Lee off by getting people to mistake him for Meat Loaf in what is now being framed as more innocent times (although he was mean and miserable then, too).  The most page time goes to an instance in which he - atypicially, Sing Backwards keeps things anonymous in this particular episode, no names - ends up having sex with a friend's girlfriend and then has to hang out with the guy for the next day while dealing with the cloud of guilt.

 

The through-line here, though, is the portrayal of destructive alcoholism.  The point of this section of the book is to show its narrator totally in the thrall of blackout-level drinking, with his personal and professional life being left in shambles.  Probably the most chilling anecdote comes in Detroit:

 

...I stood in a blackout at the window of the upstairs dressing room throwing beer bottles and screaming insults at the audience members as they were leaving the gig.  Someone had shouted "hey, Mark!  We love you!  Why are you doing this?"  Only then had I come to and realized where I was and what I was doing.

 

Sounds like a party!

 

6.  "Tiny Daggers"

A story that very briefly touches on his adult relationship with his sister, Trina - friendly but with a remarkable ability to piss each other off - in the context of an escapade that our narrator and his girlfriend embark upon involving breaking into a boat to retrieve a "borrowed" sleeping bag, sex, and uncountable microscopic fiberglass slivers in the ass.  The chapter is here mostly because its last paragraph tries to tie it into a bigger theme - his "life in a nutshell" as moments of joy coming from his various addictions (in this case his "addiction" to Anna; he uses that word) mixed with much longer periods of misery.  So, Mark on some level already gave up on life having a bigger meaning, he's motivated by pleasure and pain, drinking heightens both without changing much of anything except for making his self-sabotage more obvious.  This is really all paving the way for the first paragraph of chapter 7, wherein he discovers a new vice... but I'm doing this chapter by chapter, so we'll have to get to that next time.  It's interesting on this rereading to see how a memoir can be deceptively carefully curated to deliberately tell a particular story.

 

Lanegan again describes Anna as having an incredible ability to calm him down and make him feel good.  One thing that's not totally clear to me is whether or not she's aware of his proclivity, with or without drink, to fuck anything female that moves.  Their fights as described in later chapters are never about this topic, and I can't imagine she wouldn't figure it out; it's also unclear to me whether she's making any attempt at monogamy either.  This chapter mentions her plans for "a final romantic evening with her touring, ne'er-do-well boyfriend," so I'm guessing there's a mutual understanding there.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED!

But first, a breakdown of Uncle Anesthesia, whenever I get around to it!