| Alice in Chains – Rooster Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It was written by guitarist Jerry Cantrell for his father, who served in the Vietnam War. His nickname was "Rooster."[2] The nickname most likely originated from men who used machine guns (see the second verse, first line) as when it would strafe an area the tracers would make a pattern that looked like a rooster's tail, but there is speculation that it may have been in relation to the 101st Airborne Division, in which Cantrell's father served. The 101st Airborne wore patches on their arms featuring a bald eagle. There are no bald eagles in Vietnam, so the closest thing to which the Vietnamese could reference them was the chicken. They referred to them as "chicken men".[3] In the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, Jerry Cantrell said of the song: It was the start of the healing process between my Dad and I from all that damage that Vietnam caused. This was all my perception of his experiences out there. The first time I ever heard him talk about it was when we made the video and he did a 45 minute interview with Mark Pellington and I was amazed he did it. He was totally cool, totally calm, accepted it all and had a good time doing it. It even brought him to the point of tears. It was beautiful. He said it was a weird experience, a sad experience and he hoped that nobody else had to go through it.[1] Source: Wikipedia |
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| Alice in Chains – Man In The Box Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Origin and Meaning: In the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, guitarist Jerry Cantrell said of the song, "That whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves; it helped Alice become what it was." The song makes use of a talk box to create the guitar effect. The original Facelift track listing credited only vocalist Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell with writing the song. All post-Facelift compilations credited the entire band. It is unclear as to why the songwriter credits were changed. Realease and Reception: "Man in the Box" was released as a single in 1991. "Man in the Box" is widely considered to be one of the band's signature songs, even though it only peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart at the time of its release. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992. The song was number 19 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs and its solo was rated the 77th greatest guitar solo by Guitar World. It was number 50 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's in 2007. Steve Huey of Allmusic called the song "an often overlooked but important building block in grunge's ascent to dominance" and "a meeting of metal theatrics and introspective hopelessness." Lyrics: In a recorded interview with Fuse TV, Layne Staley stated that the lyrics are about censorship in the mass media, and "I was really stoned when I wrote it." Source: Wikipedia |
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