Dying Days

Most people are not smart enough to find a band like the Screaming Trees. I was led to them through Alice in Chains and after becoming familiar with how smart and developed their songs were, I read all the lyrics to every song on every album. Mark Lanegan has a real gift for poetry and vocal patterns. Consider this - the show Full House was on the air for almost 10 years - meaning it got high enough ratings, enough households were actually watching it on a daily or weekly basis to make it last for almost a decade. That's what you're dealing with. In other cases, people just don't 'get it'. They hear the music, but they don't really listen or have a good sense of dual perspective. They can't feel what is being expressed like others can. You can hear Mark Lanegan's pain, misery, anguish or wonder in each lyric. The master of this was Kurt Cobain. It's not a developed thing. When Kurt Cobain sang, it sounded like it came straight from his soul. There were no barriers, no filters, no falsity. Some people just can't detect that - they think he just sounds like a 'cat being killed' or a 'wounded animal'. The funny thing is - they actually got it right and didn't even know it. He was dying inside and that's what it sounds like. The song "No One Knows", "Troubled Times", "Too Far Away" and many others have elicited tears from me on many occasions. If you are ever faced with serious heartache, The Screaming Trees should join you.