Mark Lanegan released his first solo album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990. His most recent album is Straight Songs ofSorrow. His singular body of work encompasses dozens of albums both solo and collaborative. He lives in Los Angeles.
A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020 A Rough Trade "Book
of the Year" (2020) A MOJO "Book of the Year" (2020) Variety, "Best
Music Books of 2020"
"Sing Backwards and Weep is powerfully written and brutally,
frighteningly honest. First thought that came to my mind was, 'Mark
Lanegan gives the term bad boy a whole new meaning.' These are
gritty, wild tales of hardcore drugs, sex, and grunge. But this is
also the story of a soulful artist who refused the darkness when it
tried to swallow him whole. And who found redemption through grace
and the power of his unique and brilliant music. Finally, the song
becomes truth. And the truth becomes song."--Lucinda Williams
"[Sing Backwards and Weep] unflinchingly tells the musician's
hardscrabble story."--SPIN
"[A] fearsome and brutal new autobiography."--Washington Post
"[A]n extraordinary snapshot of the reality lower down the totem
pole.... one of the most compelling accounts of squalor and misery
ever committed to paper. In comparison, Bukowski at his most
fevered reads like Somerset Maugham."--New Statesman
"A dark, gripping and compelling piece of work."--Guerrilla
Candy
"A no holds barred memoir of uncompromising honesty. All of the
usual suspects are here-sex, drugs, rock and roll-and if that were
all, it would be compelling enough on the strength of Lanegan's
writing and the setting of 80's and 90's Seattle, a near mythical
time and place in music history. But what elevates Sing Backwards
and Weep above the pack is the window into Lanegan's development as
an artist, from his first musical influences to the singular singer
and songwriter we see today. He seamlessly weaves that storyline
into the more conventional rock memoir fabric and the results are
outstanding."--Tom Hansen, author of AmericanJunkie and This Is
What We Do
"A stunning tally of the sacrifices that sex, drugs, and rock 'n'
roll demand of its mortal instruments."--Kirkus Reviews
"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
"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
"In a gritty new memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep, Lanegan offers an
unflinching look at his shadowy past, stretching from childhood up
until the death of his friend Staley in 2002. The book reads like a
debauched Bukowski novel, as Lanegan drifts from sin to sin,
cursing those who held him back from music, drugs, and hookups, and
recounting grisly tales about his famous friends."--Rolling
Stone
"It's a hell of a read. All-consuming, even. Be warned."--Louder
Than War
"MARK LANEGAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY IS THE MOST RAW AND BRUTAL ROCK
MEMOIR EVER WRITTEN... [This book is] one of the most unflinching
memoirs in the history of music writing."--Kerrang!
"Rather astonishing... [it] reads kind of like the grunge-scene
Andy Warhol Diaries: check the index, and there's probably a great
story about your favorite artist."--Minnesota Public Radio, "The
Current"
"Some books amuse you, some intrigue you, and some-they don't come
along often-like Mark Lanegan's Sing Backwards and Weep, squeeze
you by the throat and drag you down the back stairs of the author's
soul and blast you till you see what he's seen and feel what he's
felt. Mark Lanegan spares no detail of the toxic and maniacal
things he's done and had done to him, nor of the glorious, weird
beauty he walked out with on the other side. You can't look and you
can't look away. This is my kind of book. Fucked-up, full of heart,
and hard-core as a shot of battery acid in the eye."--Jerry Stahl,
author of Permanent Midnight, I, Fatty, and Happy Mutant Baby
Pills
"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 Lambof God
"One of the most compelling and revealing rock memoirs
ever."--Rolling Stone
"Out of all the music books released this year, it's hard to
imagine one making a reader's jaw drop more often than this
harrowing memoir."--Variety
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