Slow Suicides No Way To Go

We all have our influences. Certain individuals manage to reach out and touch us, in some way, shape or form. Many of those people are constants in our lives. They are our family, our friends. Sometimes there are those who manage to reach us in other ways. They reach us through their art, their writings, their music. Even though they don't know us, we feel we know them.

Today, April 5th, 2005 is an anniversary of the passing of one person who has influenced my life. Layne Staley, the lead singer of Alice In Chains, died of a drug overdose 3 years ago. The news didn't shake the industry much. He had been rumored to have died countless times. He was a loner, and had all but dissappeared from the world by the time of his death.

The bands music and lyrics have been an odd comforting factor in my life since I started listening to them. Many would find their music to be dark and dreary. For me it was always a comfort. I listened to them when I was upset, and for some reason, everything became ok.

Layne was an amazing lyricist, with one of the most distinctive voices in rock history. He wrote a majority of AIC's lyrics, and also Mad Season, a side project he did with Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Barret Martin and Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees, and John Baker Saunders in 1995.

Thank you for the music Layne. Its been with me for many years, and will continue to be.


Layne Staley (Aug 27, 1967-April 5, 2002)

Nutshell by 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

My gift of self is raped
My privacy is raked
And yet I find, and yet I find
Repeating in my head
If I can't be my own
I'd feel better dead