Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir

Mark Lanegan

Apr 2020 · Sold by Hachette Books

About this ebook

This gritty bestselling memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, and Soulsavers documents his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the '80s and '90s.

When Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s, he was just "an arrogant, self-loathing redneck waster seeking transformation through rock 'n' roll." Little did he know that within less than a decade he would rise to fame as the frontman of the Screaming Trees and then fall from grace as a low-level crack dealer and a homeless heroin addict, all the while watching some of his closest friends rocket to the forefront of popular music.

In Sing Backwards and Weep, Lanegan takes readers back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and dripping with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of the Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favorites that scored a hit number five single on Billboard's alternative charts and landed a notorious performance on Late Night with David Letterman, where Lanegan appeared sporting a fresh black eye from a brawl the night before. This book also dives into Lanegan's personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends. From the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, onstage, backstage, and everywhere in between, Sing Backwards and Weep reveals the abrasive underlining beneath one of the most romanticized decades in rock history-from a survivor who lived to tell the tale.

Gritty, gripping, and unflinchingly raw, Sing Backwards and Weep is a book about more thanjust an extraordinary singer who watched hisdreams catch fire and incinerate the groundbeneath his feet. It's about a man who learnedhow to drag himself from the wreckage, dust offthe ashes, and keep living and creating.

"Mark Lanegan—primitive, brutal, and apocalyptic. What's not to love?" —Nick Cave, author of The Sick Bag Song and The Death of Bunny Munro

Ratings and reviews

Anyone who was a young adult from the mid ‘80’s to the late 90’s and followed the Rock music of that time period will like this book. It captures completely a place and time that many people (certainly I) identify with intimately. Lanegan takes us inside the world of the burgeoning Seattle scene of the early’90s with the likes of Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain and all of the Grunge bands of the time. It’s also a backstage pass into the unbelievably dark and dangerous world of hardcore drug addiction and the hellish places it’s roads lead through. There are plenty of moments of hilarity in it, as well. I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. Thought provoking, reflective, raw and hilarious. It turned me into a born again Screaming Trees fan. Mark Lanegan is certainly an American one of a kind.

This book is amazing. In a very sad way. Mark Lanegan takes you on one hell of a ride. I started this book, and couldn’t not put it down. Do yourself a favor, and indulge into marks life. Also If you are a fan of rock from the 80s and 90s, you need to check this book out.

Loved it. As someone in recovery for a quarter century, good to know it's still hell out there. Thank you, Mark Lanegan for an excellently written unflinching memoir of all consuming, soul-crushing darkness. And thanks for not dying.

About the author

Mark Lanegan released his first solo album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990. His most recent album is Straight Songs ofSorrow. His singular body of work encompasses dozens of albums both solo and collaborative. He lives in Los Angeles.