Hung On A Hook Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Rami Abu Shakra 

Cover art for Hung On A Hook lyrics by Alice in Chains

the song talks about how the narrator (im assuming it's Layne) is depressed and is contemplating suicide or something of the sort.

In lines like

"Hung on a hook I'm a mirror" "Cracked down the center I split you" "Show you the face of a man who"

you can see how the narrator is directing the song or the lyrics to himself as if he were observing his own life and his own decisions and that's shown even more clearly here in

"Show you the face of a man who Not that he wants but he has to Look at the thing he's become, what I see"

It could also be about depression or troubled times or any sort of confusion maybe as when he says "Counting the clouds in a storm behind your eyes" , he's talking about how cloudy his own judgement is or maybe even his thoughts, and with "I'm caught in a still life with no frame" he most probably means he has no control over his life (though im not so sure on this)

Though the idea of suicide is more apparent since he, with the idea that he's addressing himself in the song already at hand, very clearly says things like

"Future between a gun and your head"

and

"Not gonna save you Perform euthanasia"

Personally i do believe it's an amazing and poetic song, albeit very dark. It captures the narrator's sadness in a very poetic way especially with the idea that the narrator is addressing himself throughout the song.

Song Meaning

@Rami Abu Shakra First I'll take this out of the way: when they wrote this Layne was already dead as you must know (just so everyone knows). I don't think they do songs about Layne anymore after "Black gives way to blue" but that's not a given, it's just my opinion.

Agreed on the general theme of suicide, though I'm not sure they mean the narrator is the mirror and the one looking at the mirror at the same time. To me it makes more sense as someone who is a mirror to those close to him, but...