The two Alice in Chains songs credited entirely to Layne Staley
The late Layne Staley poured all the darkness of his personal struggles into his songwriting, an approach which allowed Alice in Chains to stand out in a sea of Seattle-based grunge bands that found huge popularity in the 1990s, making him as revered a songwriter as Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. Always fused with his genuine emotion, his lyrics covered everything from dysfunctional family life to the drug addiction that wound up taking his life in 2002.
Staley’s addiction to heroin was well publicised, having been allegedly introduced to the drug whilst on tour with Van Halen. ‘Hate To Feel’ from 1992’s Dirt reflects how rapidly the drug took hold of him: “Used to be curious / Now the shit’s sustenance.” It was a stark portrayal of his own substance abuse, but it was in keeping with the sheer authenticity of Alice in Chains. As a band, they traded on their ability to take bleak, essentially autobiographical subject matter and make incredibly dark – but relatable songs.
Staley was said to have been drawn to becoming a musician in the hopes it might bring his father back into his life after his parent’s divorce rocked him at seven years old. Sure enough, when Alice in Chains started to make waves, his father tracked him down. They both shared a struggle with drug abuse, and the reunion resulted in them doing heroin together.
Staley’s own disappointment with himself seeps through the lyrics as he sings: “All this time I swore I’d never / Be like my old man / What the hey, it’s time to face / Exactly what I am.” That he was trying to quit drugs around the time his father got back in touch sent him on a darker emotional spiral because his father seemed to be using him to feed his own addiction.
‘Angry Chair’ is the only other track on Dirt credited entirely to Staley. The track features another nod to his personal devastation in the wake of his addiction: “Saw my reflection and cried, hey / So little hope that I died, oh / Feed me your lies, open wide, hey / Weight of my heart, not the size.” The songs seemed connected by subject matter, and the ‘Angry Chair’ single had a live version of ‘Hate To Feel’ as the B-side.
As Staley explained in the years before his drug-induced death, Dirt was always intended to be interpreted as a concept album. The prevailing narrative seems to be that listeners follow a character who experienced the same struggles as Staley, who turns to drugs to self-medicate. Eerily, the second portion of the album seems to chart his descent into hell, with ‘Hate To Feel’ and ‘Angry Chair’ making up its devasting ending.
