COULD A BODY TAKE THAT MUCH?
Sometimes, discovering new music leaves such a big mark you end up remembering a lot of tiny details that for other events you just don’t bother.
It was a January morning in the mid ’90’s and I clearly remember the streets all wet, but the rain had already passed by and a pale sun was swaying above the clouds. For some reason, I didn’t go to school and I stopped at my usual record store with nothing but a few coins in my pockets. With such a scant budget my options were pretty limited, so I just started to flip through a clearance bin full of cd singles.
As soon as Mark Lanegan’s ‘House A Home’ popped up, I knew that was it. I had never heard his solo records before, I only read he had some out, but I loved his work with Screaming Trees, so it seemed the safest bet I could make with my little money that day.
To my surprise, there was none of the Screaming Trees’ psychedelic grunge sound in Lanegan’s solo work, but that didn’t put me off. The music was mostly country and blues-infused and seemed so heartfelt. Also, I was astonished at how Mark’s singing perfectly suited these soundscapes. It couldn’t be any different after all, with a voice that sounded like it had been battered in whiskey and smoke.
Eventually, I went to pick both the solo albums he had released up to that point, and they became two big favorites of mine. He kept putting out masterpieces for some time, before his output became a little hit or miss.
If you followed his career closely (or read his great autobiography ‘Sing Backwards And Weep’) and know what the guy has been through over the years, you couldn’t help asking yourself the same question heard in the lyrics for ‘House A Home’: “Could a body take that much?”. Unfortunately, we got the answer we wished we would never get.
Mark Lanegan: 1962 – 2022.