Mark Lanegan doesn’t shy away from talking about the wins and pitfalls in his memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep. And on his latest track, “Stockholm City Blues,” he remembers while he spent a night sick in the Swedish city after a getting high on junk.
“I pay for this pain I’m running through my blood,” he sings. “You couldn’t ever tell me when enough’s enough.”
“Stockholm City Blues” follows Lanegan’s previously released “Bleed All Over” and “Skeleton Key.”
While he “didn’t get catharsis” from writing the book, he did find comfort in making music again.
“All I got was a Pandora’s box full of pain and misery,” he said in a statement about writing the memoir. “I went way in and remembered shit I’d put away 20 years ago. But I started writing these songs the minute I was done, and I realized there was a depth of emotion because they were all linked to memories from this book. It was a relief to suddenly go back to music. Then I realized that was the gift of the book: these songs. I’m really proud of this record.”
Listen to Lanegan’s “Stockholm City Blues” below:
Straight Songs of Sorrow is out on May 8 while his memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep, drops the week before on April 28. You can preorder the album here.