“The title for the record came from something I heard Maya Angelou say on a PBS television program, and inspiration for the songs was born of sadness and uncertainty with my circumstances at the time: relationships, money problems, alcohol, depression, addiction and so on. Sometimes serious, sometimes comical. Other motivations included the endless gray, rain-saturated days of Seattle and a preoccupation with death as well as an ever-pervasive sense of impending doom.”Mark Lanegan (1293)

“The minimal lyrics to ‘Hospital Roll Call’ came from an unpleasant eight-day stay at a decrepit infirmary hallway in Montreal. Sixteen wasn’t a room number, just what was written in black marker on the wall above my gurney.”Mark Lanegan (1294)

“‘Last One In The World’ wasn’t written about Kurt Cobain, as some have speculated, but for my friend Layne Staley, who was still living at the time. I loved them both as family: Kurt like a little brother, Layne like a twin.”Mark Lanegan (1294)

“The lyrics came from a conversation with Fred Drake [mystical owner of Rancho do la Luna in Joshua Tree – Ed].”Mark Lanegan (1294)

“I wrote it after reading two stories in the newspaper one morning. The first covered an exhibition of photos from Ernest Shackleton’s failed Antarctic expedition, and the second described the studio apartment of a Seattle man who caused a city bus to go off the side of the Aurora Avenue Bridge when he shot the driver and then himself.”Mark Lanegan (1295)

“A minimal miniature reflecting my numbness over events on 9/11.”Mark Lanegan (1296)

“A song I wrote and recorded my last night in town [Houston, where the Houston Publishing Demos was recorded – Ed] upon receiving the devastating news that Layne Staley had died.”Mark Lanegan (1296)

“I tried to chart the skewed evolution of my own damaged species.”Mark Lanegan (1297)

“A love song I wrote in a Tokyo hotel room.”Mark Lanegan (1298)

“Dylan Carlson is the “D” from ‘Blues for D’, a song about absent friends, life on Seattle’s First Hill, and the hard times we shared there.”Mark Lanegan (1299)