The call of the night porter
Mark Lanegan's songs of loss and death just got even more poignant
Whatever else I had planned to write today, there was no doubt this morning that any previously planned topic is now on hold. Yesterday the news came that Mark Lanegan died.
I never met Mark. I knew him only through his music and his writing. I’m sure poignant eulogies will come from fans and people who knew him well. I’m not sure exactly what I want to write. If nothing more than a small token of respect projected out into the universe, today I listen to Mark Lanegan, today I write a few words about Mark Lanegan.
It was 1996, days when The New Musical Express (NME) was a force in UK music publishing. The Screaming Trees had released what would be their last album, Dust. The name meant nothing to me, I’d never seen this gaunt and disgruntled looking frontman scowling in the accompanying promotional photos.
According to the NME review Dust was a modern classic. So I took heed and bought the album. I bought it on cassette. It was those days. I probably still have that cassette somewhere. At some point I bought it on CD.
Maybe it’s the sentimentality that comes with first introductions. Maybe that’s why Dust would probably be the Screaming Trees album I’d hold onto (if I was only allowed one).
Sweet Oblivion, the band’s previous record, has some brilliant tracks too. The opener “Shadow of the Season” and the final three tracks “Troubled Times”, “No One Knows” and “Julie Paradise” have been favourites of mine ever since I heard them. Great, powerful, emotive Rock music.
No less satisfying as those final Screaming Trees albums, were the music Mark made with Queens of the Stone Age. In fact, over the years Mark Lanegan had more collaborations than any obituary is likely to cover.
My exposure came at that ripest of ages where new musical heroes seem to have a special power to have lifelong resonance. After the Dust introduction in 1996 I gobbled up everything I could find with Mark on it. The solo albums were essential. Probably none more so to me than 1994’s “Whiskey for the Holy Ghost”. As visceral as the hard rocking side of Mark Lanegan’s music is, it’s the low key and sombre material that I found and find myself coming back to most often.
The past 10 years or so I wasn’t following Lanegan’s output so obsessively. But though I wasn’t necessarily captivated by every release, and even let a few pass me by without investigation, it was good to know he was still there. It wasn’t just the nostalgia of the music I grew up with, I would check out something I hadn’t heard before and often find myself delighted. Those “why didn’t I listen to this earlier?” moments.
Lanegan’s memoir “Sing Backwards and Weep” was the opportunity for me to rediscover his music (and the parts I’d missed) while I ate up all the personal stories I didn’t know about the life that accompanied all that life-enriching music (or should it be the other way round?).
Nevertheless, I somehow didn’t get around to listening to the last (and now really last) solo album, 2020’s “Straight Songs of Sorrow”. I didn’t get round to it till right now that is, right now as I write this.
So now I know what plenty of others already knew: Mark Lanegan continued to do what he did at the highest level, right up to the end of his career. Right up to the end of his abruptly cut short life.
Mark Lanegan, one of the most authentic, soulful voices to sing of loss and death and sadness. Now all that heavy emotion feels even more poignant. Mark Lanegan will make a great ghost.
I've been up, Lord,
Lord, I've been down
Feel like I'm headed to that ice cold burying ground
Mark Lanegan (2020)
