Alice in wonderland, is there really a thing called wonderland ? One of those childhood illusions that that they paint assuring your infant minds that everything is gonna be alright. In the novel the girl Alice falls into a rabbit hole that leads to a fantasy world, but in life we are woken up to a world of sorrows and sadness and in this world Alice is in chains. Alice in Chains was with me for a long time but the sheer genius behind the name dawned upon me today. We are blinded when everything happens the way we want them to be but when storms rattles the sails we suddenly begin think how deep the ocean could be. Today is a sad day and I don't want the sorrow to be wasted on tears, lets do something more productive, let me wax lyrical about one of the most mournful and bizarre pieces of music ever recorded.
Alice in Chains is one of the 'big four' bands to emerge from the Seattle grunge scene the other three being Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. In the late 1980s rock music was dominated by glam metal in the mainstream and trash metal in the underground. Glam metal celebrated rockstars, sex and flashy aesthetics, it was the ultimate escapism, the evolutionary end of an alpha male and this was forced and consumed by the public, it was wonderland all over again. You cannot however hold back the darkest side to your souls, no matter how hard you fake your smile through it, no matter how many times you listen to Pour your Sugar on Me. Grunge represented that angst in us, the contempt for this world and its illusions and when Nirvana's Nevermind sold 30 million copies it only reaffirmed that I was not and will never be alone.
Alice in Chains was the heaviest of the four, the most heavy metal influenced and the most psychedelic. The band was back in studio after their successful Dirt album, it was sad days for the band for they were thrown out of their home for failing to pay the rents. They took their acoustic guitars to the studio just to see what might happen. What happened was something beautiful and melancholic.
Jar of Flies is predominantly an acoustic album, the band's most expansive work even though it was not meant to be. Gone are the Tony Iommi riffing and the rumbling bass and in came Led Zeppelin guitar arpeggios, Pink Floydyan aural landscapes, violins and harmonica. What remains however is the dual vocal harmonies of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell and that pretty much defined the core Alice in Chains sound. The band experiments with various sounds from the wah pedal drenched Rotten Apple to the violins and strings of I Stay Away, the ominous guitar strains of Whale & Wasp to the harmonica of Don't Follow and each of these songs are backed by some gorgeous guitar strummings. However it's the song Nutshell that inspired this article, that opening riff is probably the saddest set of notes played on the guitar and the lyrics that open the song are equally desolate.
"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"
It is one of those songs that you long for in times like these and the song has probably the best solo Jerry Cantrell has ever written. There is a glimmer of hope as we hear the opening chords of the next song I Stay Away and that shimmer of happiness comes to a halt in the pre-chorus. No Excuses is the happiest of the lot, a song written by Cantrell about Staley.
"Yeah, it's fine
We'll walk down the line
Leave our rain,
a cold trade for warm sunshine
You my friend
I will defend
and if we change, well I
love you anyway"
Jar of Flies was a commercial success as well. It became the first EP to top the billboard charts and for a long time it was the only EP to do so. All of these was ironic in the sense the music was not meant to be released. Alice in Chains went on to release one more record in the year 1995 and in the year 2002 their front-man and one of the most iconic voices of rock Layne Staley passed away. The band reformed and bounced back with a new singer and released Black Gives Way to Blue in the year 2009. Their latest release Rainier Fog came last August and it is at least to me an album of the year contender.
Layne Staley (1967-2002)
There are two ways of contemplating this post, the most inspired writing ever done in this blog or the most uninspired one. The former because I am channeling my most visceral feeling for an album that has traces of those and the later because haven't heard more than two songs of this album prior to writing this piece. In either case it doesn't matter for no one is going to read this other than the one to whom I will send "Guess What?" as soon as I finish writing. Obscurity has its own advantages and I am (mis)using it to the fullest.
It's been finally out of me, Maiden Priest has become a shoulder to cry on, which is more than I thought this blog will become. When it is out of the system you levitate and I float in despondent air.
LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT
After listening this I really felt that I am very lucky that I have a place to call home... And this battle is not all alone...
ReplyDeleteThe line "maiden priest has become a shoulder to cry on" looks really funny after listening this song and reading the blog
I am happy for you.
DeleteBut there will times when we have to "fight" "battles all alone" and when we lose we realize that no one cares. We look for a shoulder and we realize there is "no one to cry to" and there is "no place to call home".
So I made this blog a "home" and a "place to cry to"
I know it's kind of funny and weird thing to do.
Thanks for reading and commenting :)