Sing Backwards and Weep

A Memoir

De: Mark Lanegan

Narrado por: Mark Lanegan

This gritty bestselling memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, and Soulsavers documents his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the '80s and '90s.

When Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s, he was just "an arrogant, self-loathing redneck waster seeking transformation through rock 'n' roll." Little did he know that within less than a decade he would rise to fame as the frontman of the Screaming Trees and then fall from grace as a low-level crack dealer and a homeless heroin addict, all the while watching some of his closest friends rocket to the forefront of popular music.

In Sing Backwards and Weep, Lanegan takes listeners back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and dripping with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of the Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favorites that scored a hit number five single on Billboard's alternative charts and landed a notorious performance on Late Night with David Letterman, where Lanegan appeared sporting a fresh black eye from a brawl the night before. This book also dives into Lanegan's personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends. From the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, onstage, backstage, and everywhere in between, Sing Backwards and Weep reveals the abrasive underlining beneath one of the most romanticized decades in rock history—from a survivor who lived to tell the tale.

Gritty, gripping, and unflinchingly raw, Sing Backwards and Weep is a book about more than just an extraordinary singer who watched his dreams catch fire and incinerate the ground beneath his feet. It's about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage, dust off the ashes, and keep living and creating.

"Mark Lanegan—primitive, brutal, and apocalyptic. What's not to love?"—Nick Cave, author of The Sick Bag Song and The Death of Bunny Munro

©2020 Mark Lanegan (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The artist's journey to find one's true voice can travel some very dark roads; addiction, violence, poverty, and soul-crushing alienation have taken the last breath of many I have called friend. Mark Lanegan dragged his scuffed boots down all of those bleak byways for years, managed to survive, and in the process created an astonishing body of work. Sing Backwards and Weep exquisitely details that harrowing trip into the heart of his particular darkness. Brutally honest, yet written without a molecule of self-pity, Lanegan paints an introspective picture of genius birthing itself on the razor's edge between beauty and annihilation. Like a Monet stabbed with a rusty switchblade, Sing Backwards and Weep is breathtaking to behold but hurts to see. I could not put this book down."—D. Randall Blythe, author of Dark Days and lead vocalist of Lamb of God

"If you ever wondered how Mark Lanegan's music came to blossom, here's a taste of the dark dirt that fertilized it. But saying that, or something like it, feels irresponsible, almost like saying 'If you want to make great, soul-shattering art, traumatize yourself to the limit and beyond' ... Sing Backwards and Weep is gnarly, naked, and true."—Michael C. Hall of Dexter and Six Feet Under

"Harrowing, edgy, tense, and hypnotic. A very truthful, sobering account of what it's like in the throes of addiction, with shades of Bukowski, Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson."—Gerard Johnson, director and writer of Tony, Hyena, and Muscle

Incredible

A rare and priceless insight to a very particular time and place. It’s amazing Mark survived to tell the story and hearing his voice reading is an absolute gift.

whoa.....

amazing story. I can't imagine digesting it any other way than hearing him read it himself. beautiful and heartbreaking. I loved this book more than I thought I was going to. I'm sure it's going to be a read and re-read lifelong book.

very good. Mark's narrative was fantastic

this is a fantastic book with some amazing stories. I feel a few chapters could have been left out. over all a fantastic ride!

Good stories, flat narration

Lanegan lived a very interesting life and he can tell a good story. His delivery though is bafflingly flat and lacking in charisma. Although the text is compelling, it's easy for his droning to make your mind wander.

Really harrowing.

Lanegan is, not surprisingly, a terrific writer. This memoir is lengthy enough, but you can tell from the depth of the stories that it barely scratches the surface of stories of a life lived hard. There are some fun rock fan moments where he spills all the tea about legends on the road, and those stories are exceedingly enjoyable, but this is mostly a difficult collection of harrowing stories of his addiction, his crummy family dynamics, his unending loss, and all of his major fuck-ups in music. The man bares it all for us, and hopefully gained some self-redemption in doing so. Highly recommend to anyone who grew up loving music in the 90s and early aughts.

SO GOOD.

A great reflection of Lanegan's rock & roll lifestyle. Some great memories and others very dark. This is a must read for any music lover of 90's Seattle scene.

You need to buy this. Marks narration of his memoirs is nothing short of utterly captivating.

Absolutely perfect. Most rock biographies are terrible and predictable, but this is absolutely compelling. Well done Mr. Lanegan.

Lanegan is brilliant!

I’m sooooo glad Mark read the book himself...his narration of his own story is so powerful...what an incredible all around artist.

As brutally honest & graphic as gets.

Having read about fifty or so music related autobiographies; this has to be as brutal and honest as it could possibly get. It will undoubtedly be hard to stomach for some, which makes it all the better.

My only qualm is that the focus on addiction far outweighs Lanegan's music and the book ends before even getting into the 2000's, which sadly disregards many of his projects. Hopefully, we'll get another book that picks up where this one lets off, because he is a master story teller.

Great book, but not for the faint of heart

This account of a complex life, of an equally complex man. A painfully honest, piercing, powerful story. I've just finished it and feel just about every possible emotion. Lanegan is an extremely talented storyteller, and if he writes more - I'm sure to read it.