Song of the Day 2/23: Screaming Trees, “Nearly Lost You”

While rock’s Jurassic generation keeps grinding on — look, another tour by 79-year-old Paul McCartney! — its more recent Cretaceous Period relics are dying out. Mark Lanegan, frontman for Screaming Trees and collaborator with Queens of the Stone Age, died at 57 at his home in rural Ireland. No cause of death was given, but he spent time in a medically-induced coma last year after contracting Covid-19.

Screaming Trees, formed by Lanegan with his high school friends in eastern Washington, predated the grunge craze by several years; Kurt Cobain considered Lanegan a “big brother.” Like other alternative acts in the Seattle scene of the early ’90s, the band swept to commercial fame thanks to the soundtrack of Cameron Crowe’s “Singles,” which included this tune. Lanegan later said he hated it because he had written it specifically trying for a hit single. It reached No. 5 on the Alternative Airplay chart, making it the band’s highest-charting single.

Like other musicians from the ’90s, Lanegan stayed busy after the fame subsided, often collaborating with other artists while releasing 11 solo albums. He was far from burnt out. Here’s a track from 2019’s “Somebody’s Knocking.”