Lanegan began his musical career in 1984 with Screaming Trees, with whom he released seven studio albums and five EPs before their disbandment in 2000. During his time with the band, he also started a solo career and released his first solo studio album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990. He subsequently released a further 10 solo albums, which received critical recognition but only moderate commercial success. Following the end of Screaming Trees, he became a frequent collaborator of Queens of the Stone Age, and was a full-time member between 2001 and 2005 during the Songs for the Deaf and Lullabies to Paralyze eras.
Lanegan collaborated with various artists throughout his career. In the 1990s, he and Kurt Cobain recorded an album of Lead Belly covers that was ultimately never released. He also joined Layne Staley and Mike McCready in the band Mad Season, and formed the alternative rock group The Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli in 2003, as well as contributing to releases by Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Tinariwen, The Twilight Singers, Manic Street Preachers, and Unkle, among others.
Lanegan struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol throughout his life, but had been sober for over a decade at the time of his death. Encouraged by his friend Anthony Bourdain, he released the memoir Sing Backwards and Weep in 2020. He followed this up in 2021 with the memoir Devil in a Coma, which focused on his near-death experience with COVID-19. He and his wife Shelley Brien left the U.S. in 2020 and settled in the Irish town of Killarney, where he died two years later at the age of 57. No cause of death was revealed.
Studio albums
The Winding Sheet (1990)
Whiskey for the Holy Ghost (1994)
Scraps at Midnight (1998)
I'll Take Care of You (1999)
Field Songs (2001)
Bubblegum (2004)
Blues Funeral (2012)
Imitations (2013)
Phantom Radio (2014)
Gargoyle (2017)
Somebody's Knocking (2019)
Straight Songs of Sorrow (2020)
Gray Goes Black
Mark Lanegan Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Please don’t turn off my radio
Not with the rope still swinging
While eternity’s mouth is singing
So insect I'm in amber
Days go by please don’t forget
Uneven, so enamored
Gray goes black
Can’t you hear my radio?
Don’t you hear my radio?
Not with the beast still sleeping
While eternity’s eyes are weeping
So insect I'm in amber
Days go by please don’t forget
Uneven, so enamored
Days go by remember that
Gray goes black
Into the blood we sink and burn
Gray goes black
The chorus of Mark Lanegan's song, "Gray Goes Black," is a haunting plea to not turn off the radio while the rope is still swinging and the beast is sleeping. It seems to suggest that the singer wants to keep the radio on to avoid hearing the sounds of violence or death that may be happening around them. The reference to eternity's mouth and eyes add an ominous tone to the lyrics, suggesting some sort of impending doom.
The verses of the song use metaphors of insects in amber and sinking into blood to convey a sense of being trapped or overwhelmed by one's surroundings. The lines "Uneven, so enamored / Days go by remember that" could be interpreted as an acceptance of one's fate or a plea to remember that life is fleeting and unpredictable.
Overall, "Gray Goes Black" is a bleak but mesmerizing song that prompts the listener to contemplate their own mortality and the fragility of life.
Line by Line Meaning
Don’t you turn off my radio
The singer pleads to not have their radio turned off
Please don’t turn off my radio
The singer pleads again to not have their radio turned off
Not with the rope still swinging
The radio shouldn't be turned off while there's still tension and fear in the air
While eternity’s mouth is singing
Perhaps referencing the spiritual, the radio shouldn't be turned off while something important is happening
So insect I'm in amber
The artist feels trapped and preserved in a moment in time, like an insect in amber
Days go by please don’t forget
The singer wants someone to remember them as time passes
Uneven, so enamored
The singer feels drawn to something irregular and unusual
Days go by remember that
The artist wants their audience to keep remembering them
Gray goes black
Something is fading or losing vibrancy
Can’t you hear my radio?
The artist questions whether their audience can hear their radio
Don’t you hear my radio?
The singer asks again if the audience is listening to their radio
Not with the beast still sleeping
The radio should be left on while something dangerous or powerful is still dormant
While eternity’s eyes are weeping
Perhaps referencing the spiritual again, the radio should be left on while something momentous is happening
Into the blood we sink and burn
Something is causing the singer to suffer deeply
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Durin S. Bane
RIP Mark, thanks for the great tunes
RayN☆maN☆
A black day today.
RIP Mark. Thanks for all the great tunes and countless collabs with some of the best. You were one of the true originals. 💔
Carmen cornelia Nastase
RIP Mark! 💔🖤
Djordjije Drobnjak
RIP Mark Lanegan <3
Vale70
Unique voice and style!
olka2909
It's my fav song by Mark
Lorenzo De Stefano
Great voice
Valight 1
Rip Marc 🙋🏼♀️🙏🏻✌🏻🕊💕
DEMÊNCIA EVIL ROCK
Sonzera cinza bixo!
TheFlowerday
my new favorite song by him. who else found him through rage?