Mark Lanegan - Whiskey for the Holy Ghost
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 18.01.1994
“You and Dylan (Carlson) are my only friends. You’re the only people I trust.”
Kurt Cobain did not have many true friends he felt comfortable opening up to. Mark Lanegan, the singer of the grunge band Screaming Trees, was perhaps the person closest to him. It is doubtful that Courtney Love, Cobain’s widow, would have been pleased to hear that fact.
In the end, Lanegan and Cobain bonded almost immediately after a Nirvana show held in a remote library in Ellensburg, Lanegan’s hometown. Mark foresaw a bright future for "Nirvana" and even prevented Krist Novoselic from joining his own band when Novoselic briefly considered it.
Cobain and Lanegan shared a similar outlook, free of rock-star pretensions, and connected deeply on both an ideological and musical level. Their most troubling shared habit was heroin injection, a path they followed after bonding over the writings of author William S. Burroughs. Lanegan, who rejected the term “grunge” as a label coined by critics, was nonetheless part of the wave of rock bands that swept through Seattle and carried it upward in the early 1990s.
But just as meteoric as the rise, the fall of that generation was harsh, fast, and painful. Many succumbed to the bitter drop, fell into addiction, and struggled to meet the relentless expectations of the music industry over time.
Mark Lanegan was no stranger to these struggles, both among his peers and within himself. He became a drug addict and dealer, spiraled into homelessness, and came dangerously close to the end. Just before reaching that point, he listened to advice given by the most vilified widow since Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, and managed to break free from his destructive habits.
Lanegan was born in November 1964 in Ellensburg, into a dysfunctional, criminal family he repeatedly tried and failed to escape. His father was an alcoholic involved in crime, while his mother subjected him to verbal abuse and forced him into dangerous physical labor.
By the age of twelve, he had already earned the dubious title of “the neighborhood alcoholic.” At eighteen, he began using drugs, was arrested for possession and dealing, and served a full year in prison. For an entire decade at the start of his career, Lanegan was consumed by drugs and alcohol, moving in and out of rehabilitation centers.
In 1994, after nearly three years of work and after almost being discarded due to his addiction issues, Lanegan released his second solo album, "Whiskey for the Holy Ghost", on January 18, 1994. It was an album more cohesive and mature than its predecessor.
In both his work and his persona, Lanegan embodies two parallel systems of imagery: that of the American Western, set against Christian religious symbolism. Ellensburg is a small Western town whose central annual event is the rodeo, and all the images that would accompany Lanegan throughout his creative life are already present on this album.
He sings about carnivals and rural fairs in "Shooting Gallery", about traveling circuses and freak shows operating on the fringes of the law and society, about old Jack who is shot and buried under cover of night in "Judas Touch", about hillbillies and rural orchestras of wandering musicians, and about his own struggle with alcoholism in "Borracho". Lanegan allows his emotions to break free, learning to embrace pain in "Riding the Nightingale", and opens the album with a tribute to his close friend Kurt Cobain in "The River Rise".
On his second solo album, Lanegan continues to move away from the sound associated with his role as the singer of "Screaming Trees", a process he had already begun four years earlier. Here, the arrangements incorporate softer, acoustic instruments, including organ, violins, saxophones, and piano. All of these elements contribute to a far darker and more intimate musical experience, allowing his bourbon and nicotine-soaked voice (often compared to that of Chris Rea) to transform the deep sorrow of country blues into something entirely new and unmistakably his own.
Despite the close bond between Lanegan and Kurt Cobain, Lanegan was deeply consumed by his own struggles in April 1994 when Cobain returned to Seattle and called him.
“Hey man, it’s Kurt. I’m back in town. What are you doing? Come over and listen to some records with me.” Lanegan did not go, nor did he call back. He lacked the patience to be present if another argument were to erupt between Cobain and his partner, Courtney Love.
A few hours later, Cobain’s lawyer called Lanegan. He did not answer her either, but her message startled him: “Mark, if you know where Kurt is, you have to tell me. Now.” Lanegan did not know where Cobain was, nor did he know that Cobain had left the rehabilitation facility where he had been staying.
As the hours passed and Cobain failed to appear, Lanegan began searching for him everywhere. Eventually, they drove to a house that belonged to Cobain near Lake Washington. Lanegan stepped outside to smoke, noticed a room above the garage, and knocked on the door. No one answered. A day or two later, he received the news: Cobain’s body had been found in the room above the garage.
“Until I wrote this book, I never told this to anyone, maybe a few close friends. I kept it to myself because I was ashamed and because I suppressed it. I know that if I had called, he would have answered the phone. The fact that I didn’t answer Kurt when he tried to reach me will probably haunt me until the day I die.”
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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