Damn you Staley

It's Pledge drive time on good ol KEXP! So I turn to other avenues of music fulfilment...My Pandora radio station just played 'Nutshell' and now I must go on a tangent!

Nutshell (Alice in Chains)

"We chase misprinted lies

We face the path of time

And yet I fight

And yet I fight
This battle all alone

No one to cry to

No place to call home

Oooh...oooh...

Oooh...oooh...

My gift of self is raped

My privacy is raked

And yet I find

And yet I find

Repeating in my head

If I cant be my own

Id feel better dead

Oooh...oooh...

Oooh...oooh..."

Wake Up (Mad Season)

"Wake up young man, it's time to wake up

Your love affair has got to go

For 10 long years, for 10 long years

The leaves to rake up

Slow suicide's no way to go, oh

Blue, clouded grey

You're not a crack up

Dizzy and weakened by the haze

Moving onward

So an infection not a phase

Yeah, oh

The cracks and lines from where you gave up

They make an easy man to read, oh

For all the times you let them bleed you

For little peace from

God you plead, and beg

For little peace from

God you plead Ahhaahh, Yeah, Ahhaahh, Yeah, Ahhaahh, Yeah

Wake up young man, wake up, wake up

Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up Oh, yeah

Wake up young man, it's time to wake up

Your love affair has got to go, yeah

For 10 long years, for 10 long years,

The leaves to rake up

Slow suicide's no way to go, oh

Slow suicide's no way to go

Wake up, wake up, wake up

Wake up, wake up, wake up"

Very few deaths of musicians leaves me melancholy.

John Lennon was one; although I was too young to remember his murder in Dec 1980, I do remember the first anniversary of it; and having grown up in a house of Beatles, I still mourn the loss of a great artist.

Having been unfortunately too close in my life situations to view and live amongst addiction to heavy drugs; I've seen the unfortunate side affects to one self and those that surrounded. Even with that fact, I CANNOT understand how anyone can let themselves continue on with a losing battle, without help, when they can acknowledge their problem; yet let it consume them till death. I understand depression and addiction can be a debilitating problem, but suicide is the easy way out. When Layne Staley died, I was literally pissed. He was robbing not only everyone, but mostly my selfish ass, of his distinctive voice and home hitting lyrics.

Alice in Chains' Jar of Flies was one of earliest CD's purchased (Pearl Jam's Ten, was the first). I may not have been a crazy huge fan learning every tidbit about them, but I could fully appreciate the scale of their talents and the strong core shaking music they produced. I found them vastly better on all fronts than Nirvana (spare your knife slinging to my head Cobain fans, he too left an amazing short libbed mark on the world). Jerry Cantrell is also an incredible musician, but without Staley he's kinda a peanut butter sammy without the perfectly matched jelly.

le sigh