"Strange Out Here"

Screaming Trees (1986)

Gary Lee Conner [Screaming Trees guitarist]: I think his vocal performance on "Strange Out Here" was probably one of his best. It was kind mellow, and he did this talking thing in the middle, where it's a "Doors parody," almost. But it was about getting out of Ellensburg. "Blood of a million dead sheep running down Third Street" – that's where the studio was, on Third Street. He wrote all those lyrics, so it was real heartfelt – as opposed to me singing about purple unicorns or something. [Laughs]

"Winter Song"

Screaming Trees (1992)

Gary Lee Conner: "Winter Song," we had just got the schedule and we were flying out to New York in a couple of days to do the record. And he shows up at my door at 6:00 in the morning. I'm asleep. And he goes, "You've got to drink beer." So, I tried to not drink it – I probably drank half a beer, and tried to dump it out.

Then he called Van and he called Barrett, and we all got together and drove all over Seattle for some reason. And by early afternoon, we'd dropped him off downtown at this strip club, the Lusty Lady, because Nina Hartley – who was his favorite porn star – was performing or something. That was the end of that day.

But the weird thing is that night, I went back home and wrote "Winter Song." And that's always been one of my favorite songs of the Screaming Trees. My wife – she was actually my girlfriend at the time – was in New York, and suggested that I write a song like Cheap Trick's "Downed." The day of the craziness and that song were kind of inspiration for "Winter Song" – it has a similar descending thing.

So, I wrote that and the next day I showed Mark, and he liked it a lot. That one didn't get changed much. But on the other hand, it starts out "Jesus knocking on my door." Originally, that was not "Jesus" – it was "Lanegan." [Laughs] So, that song was kind of inspired by that day.

"The River Rise"

Mark Lanegan (1994)

John Agnello [producer/mixer]: "The River Rise," I had Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. play those cymbal swells – Mark loved that idea. We recorded in this interesting studio called Messina Music, that had millions of cookie jars. And the intro that was the whistling and the jingling is a cookie jar. Mark thought it was amazing, so I put a mic on it, and that's how we started the record – which I thought was hilarious, and really thinking out of the box.

"Sunrise"

Mark Lanegan (1994)

Sally Barry [friend, singer]: I was like, "What do you want me to do?" [Barry sings on the track "Sunrise" from Whiskey For The Holy Ghost] And he was like, "Do whatever the hell you want to do." He just threw me into a booth and we were working with John Agnello – who was a princely person, and also an amazing producer and engineer. It was just very casual, no direction, no stress, no nothing. And that's why I ended up hanging out for a lot of those sessions, because it was just really fun. It was just a great place to be. And to watch Mark working was really nice. He was insecure a lot of the time – about his vocals. He would come out and be like, "Is that OK?" It was like, "Dude... stop. This is great."

"In the Fade"

Queens Of The Stone Age (2000)

Nick Oliveri [ex-Queens Of The Stone Age singer/bassist]: They went to go eat – Josh and Mark – and I sat there working on some lyrics, and they picked them apart. I had something like, "Cracks in the ceiling and spurts of light that never come," and they changed it up a little bit. They came up with "Live 'til you die," which I thought was great. The song is one of the best ones on the record. It's the only song that Mark is singing lead on. He sang background on "Auto Pilot," but we could have done it like we did live and had him sing – it was a much better song when he sang it.

"Hanging Tree"

Queens of the Stone Age (2002)

Alain Johannes [producer, Eleven singer/guitarist]: It's got such few words [Johannes co-wrote the tune with Josh Homme]. It's got the image of people hanging in a hanging tree.

The visual in my mind started to play out – just being in the desert. And I pictured this song about being betrayed – I guess it plays into Christian theology. And also, being completely left alone, left for dead – doesn't actually mean the person is done. All the images of Joshua Tree – desolate, open space, "Swaying in the breeze" all that stuff. And then "As we two are one" is the relationship between light and dark – kind of transcendence through a portal. All these things were just coming to my mind. Really, there are only six lines in the whole song.

"High Noon Amsterdam"

Masters of Reality (live version, 2003)

Chris Goss [producer, Masters of Reality singer/guitarist]: To indicate how astute he was musically, I'll never forget this, Mark did a European headlining tour – this was the Masters of Reality tour with Nick and Josh, actually – and three shows we did with Mark, opening for Mark. I know London was one of them, Glasgow, and one other place.

And I remember I changed one of the lyrics in "High Noon Amsterdam" after we released the album. And I mentioned it to Mark, saying, "I've got a better lyric for that line, but don't worry about it." And he goes, "Well... what is it?"

The original lyric was "Stuck my nose in the rose in the hole and it smelled like a dream," and then I changed it afterwards to "it started to bleed" instead of "smelled like a dream." He got that immediately. The rose is like a junkie reference – there's a million references to roses when you're dealing with bloody syringes. I just remember the professionalism of that – of not having to remind him, just all I had to do was mention it once, tell him the new lyric, and then he comes through and did it perfectly. On stage he never missed a fucking beat. As a live performer, he was on it. Really on it. He was always there, coming in when he was supposed to.

"Four Corners"

Mondo Generator (2003)

Nick Oliveri: I was at Brad Cook's, recording [Mondo Generator's 2003 album, A Drug Problem That Never Existed]. And I was trying to sing this song, "Four Corners." I did I don't know how many takes, and I came back another week to do it again, and it just wasn't what I was hearing to be right. And I was like, "I wonder if Mark would sing it?" So I called him up, and he said, "Yeah. I'll come down and do it."

He changed a couple lines in there that he didn't feel comfortable singing at the time, and he came in and nailed that thing. That song makes the album, because his performance on it is so good. I'm proud to have him on that, and that I'm on there with him. That tune really turned out special. I wrote the lyrics because I blacked out, and when I came to, I tried to remember what the hell happened. I was trying to figure it out – and those are the lyrics that came into my head.

"One Hundred Days"

Mark Lanegan (2004)

Chris Goss: When we were younger, we both had girlfriends who were prostitutes. For me personally, when he says, "I stop and talk to the girls who work the street, but I've got business further down" – that puts me back to being 20 years old and high as fuck. And the sun setting in the city and running into the girls who were working on the sidewalk.

That song, every time I hear it, it sends me back in a time machine. We both had similar youths around the time we were 20 years old. I was mainly in New York doing drugs, and Mark was in Seattle doing drugs – both of us being huge music fans at the same time, and the street life. So, that song does it for me – as far as capturing that vibe.

"Hiraeth"

Dark Mark vs. Skeleton Joe (2021)

Josh Klinghoffer [Mark Lanegan drummer, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist]: There's a song recently that I became obsessed with, off that record he did with Joe Cardamone [Dark Mark vs. Skeleton Joe], they played it at his memorial service – "Hiraeth." Which is actually an amazing word. A friend of mine sent me a definition for it – it's a Welsh word, and whoever is the scholar who wrote it, likens it to "A homesickness tinged with grief and sadness." Wherever Lanegan came by that word, I would imagine that was perhaps what he was feeling. It's one of the greatest vocal performances I've ever heard.

...And a Screaming Trees Tune That Should Have Been a Hit

"Dying Days"

Screaming Trees (1996)

Matt Pinfield [friend, radio/TV personality]: I had always felt that Epic Records made a mistake by not releasing this one Screaming Trees song as a single – "Dying Days." It was a song I absolutely loved and was convinced could be a rock hit in that period of time. I felt like it was one of the strongest songs on Dust. And the label pushed back on it. But I remember spending time with Mark and Barrett, and them saying to me, "You were right about that song." I just felt it was this incredibly strong song all the way around – lyrically, the feel of it, and the changes in that track.February 21, 2023

Lanegan is available as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle versions, and soon, will be available as an audio version.

Further Reading:
Remembering Mark Lanegan
10 Things We Learned From Serving The Servant
Interview with Kim Thayil of Soundgarden
The Story of Truly
Interview with Chris Goss
Fact or Fiction: Grunge

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