Song Analysi/es

It seems to me that this song is about the recording industry, but I do not understand the lyric "20 hours won't print my picture milk carton size." Any ideas?

Ohhhh.... For the first time I understand it. lol. I hate it when I don't understand something until the moment I voice the question.

You know the old saying, "Take a picture, it will last longer." Yeah.

Dude, you just brought up one of the most underrated and influential rock bands of all time. I could talk at great length about Alice in Chains and Layne Staley, as they are one of my favorite bands and he was one of my favorite artists. That said this has always been one of their more difficult songs to crack.

I believe it makes references to the following:

1. Drug addiction (most of their songs revolve around this in some form)
   
2. His father who abandoned him only to return when he got famous
   
3. His girlfriend, who battled drug addiction along side Layne
   
4. Two-Faced Junkies who pretend to be Layne's friends all the while hoping to score a freebie off him
   
5. Record execs who just want to use Layne & the band, squeezing as much $$ out of them as they can while Layne's sober and can be found (this is in reference to your "carton size" question)
   

/goes to put in his Music Bank dvd

I've been relentlessly listening to Unplugged every day for about two weeks now, broken up by brief interludes of Best of the Box, In Utero, and Mechanical Animals.

Cantrell has the perfect complimentary emotional tone, in his style of strange blues, for Layne's vocals. It's kinda making me want to pick up my guitar again.

Dirt was the first CD I ever bought when I finally got a cd player.

I respect your opinion because you're probably a deeper fan than I am, but look at the lyrics before:

"Look in my eyes deep and watch the clouds change with time
20 hours won’t print my picture milk carton size
Carton size, carton size"

I had initially assumed it was about squeezing money or fame, but it didn't ever completely work. While it situationally ties in the theme that parasites flock to you when you are a celebrity, I think the lyrics make the most sense if he is saying "take a picture, it will last longer" because the person is staring into his eyes, as if trying to take some kind of "brilliance" or fame away for themselves. But no matter how long they stare into his eyes, they won't take anything away, not even a small picture of him that lets them feel like they own a little bit of his fame.

Your view that it's about all those things, celebrity in general as opposed to just the music industry, makes more sense than what I had assumed. But I have a problem with the chorus. "Once again you see an in" can apply to any parasitic person, as does the "so afraid you kindly gurgle out a date for me" (afraid that they will lose what they want to suck power from, the parasitic person would try to set a date in typical LA fashion while making themselves look important like "we should get together and maybe I could help you with...(blah blah blah)" or "we should get together because I know this guy who could help you..." The problem is the "discolored skin." I would think that is a direct reference to junkies, but it doesn't seem like the whole song is about junkies (and I don't think it makes much sense, logically or emotionally, to have a song addressed to a wide range of people and then single out only the junkies in the chorus). Unless... maybe he is also talking about the flush people might get in their skin when they are aggressively trying to use or capture the attention of someone important. That would make the lyric make sense for junkies OR Hollywood types. What do you think?

Honestly, I work with the biggest AiC fan in the world, but I've grown to love the band. I told him about your forum post and he went on a quest to find the meaning of this song. He agrees it's a tough one to crack.

Layne was complex, and unfortunately much of his life was overshadowed by his drug addiction. I think even when he wasn't trying to write a song concerning drugs, the theme still managed to leave it's stamp. I can agree that when he got famous, he probably didn't adjust. So the parasitic angle you suggest fits pretty well with the song too, although I would have never thought about it that way if you hadn't suggested it.

What is "Red Man?"

Kenna may be referring to the rapper, Red Man, who is sometimes paired with Method Man.

lol. About as likely as he's talking about Native Americans.

Good point. Well, Kenna's Ethiopian, perhaps he's referring to something cultural from his roots?

When I first heard it, I was thinking maybe it was an intoxicating agent (alcohol?) someone was consuming to avoid their troubles, which is why he says "life is not a daisy" right after he says Red Man's got you crazy- Like he's saying that you can't escape your troubles that way. ??

Well, it'd be consistent with the ruddy complexion of being inebriated.

Or maybe he's talking about the devil (in the sense of life's troubles, not literally)?

Hmmm... how is that type of evil, even mythological, represented in African culture? A "red man" as the devil seems kinda centric to Western Civ.

Ethiopian by birth only.

Allmusic bio, first line for Kenna: "Born in Ethiopia (but raised in both Cincinnati and Virginia Beach)"

O crap. Well, that changes things.