Confessions of a Fanboy

And to think I almost missed it…

I don’t know when it happened that Mark Lanegan became my favorite artist, but for a period of a few years I was completely obsessed with his music. I don’t know if I’d still call him my favorite, but I might. The main reason he might have fallen off that pedestal – if he’s fallen at all – is that he hasn’t released anything in a couple years and I sometimes suffer from musical amnesia.

Last week, Glosslip’s own Dawn Olsen and I compiled a list of songs we’re thankful for in advance of Thanksgiving. I chose one of my favorite Mark Lanegan songs but I could have chosen so many others.

My choice was “When Your Number Isn’t Up,” which is from is last studio album Bubblegum. Every time I hear this song, I always think it’s one Johnny Cash would have recorded with Rick Rubin. Only The Man In Black could have given this song more power and more resonance than the great Lanegan himself has brought to it.

I love great love songs and stories of love gone wrong, but I’m equally moved by songs that touch on themes of isolation and loneliness. My favorite passage from “When Your Number Isn’t Up” does that brilliantly. These subject of these words has found himself abandoned in a dark, desolate place.

No one needs to tell you that
There’s no use for you here anymore
And where are your friends?
They’ve gone away
It’s a different world and they left you to this
To janitor
The emptiness

Bruce Springsteen said on Storytellers he wrote the song “Nebraska” with the idea we all know what it’s like to feel condemned. If that’s true, everyone should be able to identify with Lanegan’s description of our mortality.

When the sun is finally going down, and you’re overdue
to follow
But you’re still above the ground
What you’ve got coming is hard to swallow
Like blood running warm

When I began this post, I’d intended to compile a playlist of some of my favorite Mark Lanegan songs. Instead, I seem to have fixated on this one. I’m not sorry about that. This is a great song to fixate on; it’s one you should all hear. It’s probably not my favorite by him, but it’s easily top five and happens to be the Lanegan song I’ve listened to most, according to my iPod.

Happy Birthday, Mark, and many glorious returns.

Filed under: Tags: A Day Late and a Dollar Short, Mark Lanegan