Greg Dulli has stated in interviews that the narrative of Blackberry Belle begins with a suicide, and then flashes back to the events leading up to that suicide. "Number Nine" is the narrative of what unfolds right before the suicide.
My surmise beyond this is that both of the voices in this song belong to the same character. One is his basic personality, another is the devil that lives in his head. Not talking about psychosis here, but a more universal sort of mental battle. Lanegan's voice gives the part of the exhausted man ready to hang it up. Dulli's voice taunts Lanegan but Lanegan's narrator has already given up. Dulli's voice is the Devil, the embodiment of the hard living and despair that ultimately destroy the album's protagonist, as voiced here by Lanegan.
Greg Dulli has stated in interviews that the narrative of Blackberry Belle begins with a suicide, and then flashes back to the events leading up to that suicide. "Number Nine" is the narrative of what unfolds right before the suicide.
My surmise beyond this is that both of the voices in this song belong to the same character. One is his basic personality, another is the devil that lives in his head. Not talking about psychosis here, but a more universal sort of mental battle. Lanegan's voice gives the part of the exhausted man ready to hang it up. Dulli's voice taunts Lanegan but Lanegan's narrator has already given up. Dulli's voice is the Devil, the embodiment of the hard living and despair that ultimately destroy the album's protagonist, as voiced here by Lanegan.