Heroin's Wrath: Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan

By Michael Hooper

Mark Lanegan's memoir Sing Backwards and Weep is a gripping story of a heroin addict/musician struggling to find his way out of darkness.

Lanegan was the lead singer of Seattle grunge band Screaming Trees and a prolific solo artist and collaborator with other musicians including Isobel Campbell and Moby. He was involved with Queens of the Stone Age and Gutter Twins. His solo work could be described as a haunting Leonard Cohen. He is America's equivalent to the French poet Charles Baudelaire. He is influenced by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Velvet Underground, Gun Club, David Bowie, the Saints, Joy Division and Lou Reed.

Lanegan died Feb. 22, 2022, at age 57, of undisclosed causes. He had struggled with Covid-19 and wrote a book about his experience called Devil in a Coma while living in Ireland with his wife.

In Sing Backwards and Weep, published in April 2020, Lanegan is stripped bare, he seems to hold nothing back. The book was so compelling, I read it in three days. At various times in his life, Mark Lanegan was a porn addict, a whore willing to have sex with just about any woman, he suffered multiple sexually transmitted diseases, he was a liar, a cheat, a thief, a drug dealer and a man driven by revenge who fought with his own bandmates and with strangers who pissed him off and sometimes with other musicians. He seemed heartless yet there was a deep profound sorrow and agony at moments in his life when he realized how many people he had hurt.

His voice is so throaty and damaged, he sounds like he is going to cry when he speaks.

He shares the needle with Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana. One time Kurt and Mark Lanegan went to an ATM together and Kurt withdrew several thousands of dollars from various accounts, kept a couple hundred dollars for himself and gave the rest of the money to Mark. Another time Mark needed a fix in Denver where he was stuck in a snowstorm. Kurt sent him some heroin inside a coffee bag but the snow storm prevented quick delivery.

Mark Lanegan grew up in Ellensburg, a small town in Washington State where he started drinking and became an alcoholic by age 12. He had a terrible relationship with his mother. His father let him do whatever he wanted but warned him that his rebellion was going to lead to a life of struggle and hardship.

Mark did all kinds of drugs but used heroin to get off of alcohol. In 1984, he joined guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bassist Van Conner, and drummer Mark Pickerel to form Screaming Trees. He saw the band as his way out of the small town.

He often fought with members of the band about the direction of the music and eventually won out as their lead singer and main songwriter. They moved to Seattle and became relatively successful but never as big as Nirvana, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains. Nevertheless Screaming Trees performed at concerts and festivals over the years, often with other grunge bands in the United States and Europe.

Perhaps the most challenging thing in his life was finding heroin in order to avoid dope sickness. Without a fix a heroin addict gets really sick and starts throwing up and suffers diarrhea as the body works to eliminate all its toxins. The only way to stop the dope sickness is to get another fix. Lanegan was given a limit of $200 a day while on tour and he spent most of it on heroin. I'd say more than a third of the book is devoted to his struggles to score drugs.

There are so many missed opportunities in his life. He turns down a chance to provide the music for a movie in Massachusetts because he is afraid he can't find heroin there.

Perhaps the most harrowing tale of scoring drugs is when he's in Europe and he's suffering from dope sickness and needs a fix in Amsterdam. He goes out at 2 a.m. to a square where drugs are sold. He buys some dope but when he returns to his hotel he finds out it's fake. So now he needs more money. He pounds on the door of the merchandise sellers and asks for money and they threaten to call the cops but finally give him two 50-pound notes for his share of the merchandise. He then goes back to the same square to buy drugs but two people rob him at knifepoint and take all of his money. You would think at this point he would give up, but no, he takes a cab back to the hotel and fights with the cabbie over his lack of cash to pay him. Inside the hotel he finds out at the front desk that he's been authorized to charge up to 500 guilders on a credit card so he takes the money, pays the disgruntled cabbie, grabs another cab and goes back to the same square to try to find heroin. No one is there and he begins wandering the streets of Amsterdam. A strange person riding a bicycle comes toward him. He asks if the cyclist has any heroin and sure enough the guy does. Lanegan needs to do a shot right now. The Dutchman locks his bike up and sees an unlocked bike and steals it and takes it up five flights of stairs. When they enter his apartment he throws the bicycle on a pile of bikes. Lanegan is by now full of dope sickness and vomiting with diarrhea. The Dutchman prepares the heroin for him to shoot up. While sitting in the stranger's toilet he shakily finds a vein and shoots the heroin into his bloodstream, and for the first time in over a week he starts to feel well.

The book includes a story about a Swedish fan who is pompous and entitled. He partied with her and her friend but didn't like her at all for her better-than-thou attitude. On a second occasion, he was doing heroin with a couple of friends. They had washed needles in a tall glass of water. When she burst into the room, she said she was thirsty and saw this tall glass of reddish water and guzzled it down in one full sweep. It took all his might to keep from bursting out in laughter.

The book includes his encounters with musicians like Bernard Summer of Joy Division and New Order, Johnny Marr of The Smiths and encounters with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

Courtney Love pays for much of his rehab in California.

The book ends with the news that his long time friend and co-drug user Layne Staley of Alice In Chains has died from a speedball drug overdose.

In the book's dedication Mark writes, "For Tony (Anthony Bourdain) and all my other absent friends."

I never did heroin, but Mark Lanegan's life reminds me of the drug addicts I knew as a teen-ager. They seemed like loyal friends when we would score a bag of weed together, get high and listen to music. But sometimes they would steal from me. Or one time, Mike Hughes beat me up because I didn't get him high. As a drug dealer, Mark would sometimes burn his source, steal the dope and keep it for himself. One time his source threatened to kill him. I learned the hard way, I had to get rid of these lying druggie friends to find people I could trust.

I am also greatly disturbed by all the self-torture in the book. He's throwing up, he's cold, he's got the chills. One time his arm swells up from an infection, at one point doctors considered cutting off his arm. All of this self-torture says one thing, stay away from heroin.

Sure Mark was the exception in terms of production. He wrote and performed high, and seemed to do all right. But his life was a living hell. And most people are not productive on drugs.

Here's some of the lyrics from Mark Lanegan's song, I Wouldn't Want To Say

I wouldn't want to say, my friend
So I’m not saying anything
You say you'll fall, I'll fall lower
A love letter was what I meant
A bullet to the heart was sent
The way my body lay here bent
In the freezing exposure and frozen to colder
I wouldn’t want to say
No, I wouldn't want to say

Get out while you can, get out while you can
I will bring bad luck and misery to you, man
I'll paint this shadow across your land
While putting something graveyard dark
Straight into your hand
I wouldn't want to say
I wouldn't want to say

Finally, there are some sad haunting sounds generated by Mark Lanegan. Search him out on YouTube and you will find his music. I learned a lot from this book, mainly what it's like for a heroin addict. It is a frightening experience.