Down In A Hole, Unplugged

After finishing Alice In Chains: The Untold Story, I’ve been on a real AIC kick, which led me back to their Unplugged performance of Down In A Hole. And man, what a masterpiece.

I’ve known this song since I was a teenager, but I feel like I heard it for the first time again this week. There’s a lot to love about it. The songwriting is tasteful, but unique. I love what Mike Inez is doing on the bass, getting up an down the fretboard. The classic tradeoff of vocals between Layne and Jerry is in full effect. They do such a great job blending that I’ve never been sure who takes what part in a given song. Watching the video, it’s clear why that is, because Jerry sometimes takes the lead for a phrase or coda.

But what blew me away is Layne’s vocal part. What I particularly love is he sings 3 distinct styles.

He comes in softly in the first verse, blending with Jerry, almost mumble singing. Jerry arguably is the lead at first, with Layne harmonizing over the top. We get a peek of where he’s going on the word “sand” in the 3rd line, but then he fall back in line. Jerry takes the coda of the verse with the quiet “in bloom”.

Then in the prechorus, Layne brings something completely different, going super bluesy. But not before blasting us with the word “down”. That woke me up! And then he sings just about the bluesiest lines I’ve ever heard out of a 90s rock singer, maybe aside from Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. It’s really something how he works in and out of blue notes and adds in fills. Combined with the lyrics, it really feels like he’s taking us to the world he inhabits.

“Down in a hole and I don’t know if I can be saved”

Given what’s known about how severely addicted to heroin he was, and the tragic way he wasted away over the next decade, I think he was being about a real as you can be.I also note that Jerry drops out for this part, so we’re hearing Layne literally alone.

And then we get hit with the chorus. Reminiscent of a James Brown song, so far, the whole song has been vamping on 3 chords. So the sudden switch of key feels massive. Jerry comes back in, and Layne is singing with full projection. The blue notes are gone, we’re getting just a straight up rock refrain. Lastly, we get one of the cooler turnarounds in 90s music with the “I want to fly, but my wings have been so denied”, which he ends with a vocal run, as the song slips back to its vamp. It’s like he almost escaped before tumbling back to the place he has been singing about. Again, the reality of Layne’s life makes this so much more poignant.

It reminds me of the song Pool Shark by Sublime, another song about personal doom, sung by a doomed singer.

If these 3 parts were the whole song, it would already be a masterpiece, but we get several more variations, including the part of the song that always stood out to me, where Layne and Jerry are singing in call-and-response.

Another part of the video I love is Jerry’s smile when Layne breaks into the second verse. From what I have read, it seems that as this was recorded, the band was very much on the rocks, and no one knew if Layne was ever going to perform again. In fact, he’d only perform a handful more times, with his final performance happening a couple months later. Jerry could have been smiling about anything, but to me, it seems like he’s breaking character to enjoy Layne’s performance for a quick second. For everything Layne was going through, he still had it in him to sing the hell out of the song in such a stripped down, exposed setting.

When I was young and badly depressed, songs like this connected with me and kind of made me feel seen. It has, thankfully, been a long time since I’ve been depressed, but I still feel that catharsis listening to music like this.