“I nearly lost you there
And it’s taken us somewhere
I nearly lost you there
Well let’s try to sleep now”
(The Screaming Trees – “Nearly Lost You”)
No, sleeping was not that easy on the night from Tuesday, February 22, 2022 to Wednesday. Too much swirls through the head. First you follow the developments in the Ukraine on the television, stunned, trying to somehow classify them. And then the news hits you that Mark Lanegan has passed away. Singer of the Screaming Trees, friend of Kurt Cobain, the dark voice of grunge, who proved on his many solo albums and countless features that he had so many more facets.
We really lost him. We? What does that actually mean weather? did he hear us No definitely not. Mark Lanegan never wanted to belong to anyone, he often felt misunderstood, unappreciated, misunderstood. He was one troubled soul, also a troublemaker. I experienced that first hand, without ever having met him personally. And why am I writing about him now? Because I loved him and his work, because I have a heart for such tortured souls, because we admired many artists together, from Jeffrey Lee Pierce to Ian Curtis to Iggy Pop and Townes Van Zandt. And because in autumn 2021 published his autobiography “All Dark in this World” with Heyne Hardcore.
Quite a few shook their heads at this. Who should be interested in the life story of an aged grunge singer who writes about all the darkness in his world? Far from a glamorous read, Lanegan writes little about all the fantastic records and concerts by his first band, The Screaming Trees; not about all the great solo albums and collaborations with dozens of bands and musicians. No, he rather writes about the struggles within the band, the trouble with the record companies, (surviving) life on the street, his alcohol and drug addiction.
The original title of the book is “Sing backwards and weep”, a line from the last song “Fix” from his solo album FIELD SONGS from 1999. Because I thought this title would only mean something to hardcore fans and a translation would make little sense revealed, I decided to choose a new title for the book. And since Mark keeps writing about darkness in the book, I came up with “All the Darkness of this World”, which both the translator and the editor of the book thought was good and appropriate.
Mark Lanegan’s anger hit me
Only Mark was “not amused” when he saw the book, he was even angry and “outraged”. I forgot to get his consent. And he was right. I forgot it. Why? Because, despite several attempts, I never got in touch with him personally, and he had different “managers” who didn’t really show any interest. And because it is not uncommon in publishing practice to change book titles in other languages. And then I just forgot. Until one of those managers spoke up and Mark’s anger hit me.
Once Mark got the hang of it, I knew from reading that he could get really angry and lash out. Then it got really unpleasant, I can say that much.
It hurt because I wanted the best for the book, but he didn’t care. The day before he died I commissioned the production to prepare a new edition of the autobiography under the English book title so that Mark could get what he wanted. He will never see this issue again. But I owe him that.
His book disturbed not a few acquaintances, it’s a survival story, hard stuff, it shows the dark side behind this whole supposed rock star business. The fact that the book was published in the middle of the pandemic, in which the existence of so many musicians and creative artists was also threatened, somehow fitted into the picture.
Mark Lanegan became seriously ill with Covid himself last spring, was in a coma for a while and lost his hearing. He also wrote a book about this period called Devil in a Coma, which was published in England in December. He last lived in Ireland.
I would have liked to have personally apologized to him and chatted with him about what we both love – great singers and songwriters. It was not meant to be. It hurts.
Markus Naegele is the publishing manager at Heyne Hardcore. He also makes music under the name Don Marco & Die Kleine Freiheit.