Scraps at Midnight


Scraps at Midnight is the third solo album by the American musician Mark Lanegan. It was produced by Lanegan and longtime collaborator Mike Johnson, and was released in 1998.

Background

Scraps at Midnight could arguably be considered the final installment of a trilogy of albums which feature the songwriter's interpretation of American roots music set to troubling lyrics that explore themes of loss, sin, and redemption. In a 2004 interview, Lanegan stated "That's always been my goal since I started...It's sort of been my obsession to make records that had the feeling of the blues, the spirit of them, I think, but without being what we'd consider to be traditional blues, or twelve bar bar band blues, which is a boring, outdated mode and I'm not interested in it. But I am interested in the real feelings behind it."

Recording

The album was recorded at the Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California. Opener "Hospital Roll Call" and the Cohenesque "Hotel" expands on the theme of self-abuse, while the gentle "Bell Black Ocean" and "Stay" deal with themes of love and perseverance. In his 2017 book I Am the Wolf: Lyrics and Writings, Lanegan elaborates on several of the compositions and clears up some misconceptions, writing that "Last One in the World" was not 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 was like a little brother, Layne like a twin." He also relates that the minimal lyrics to "Hospital Roll Call" came from "an unpleasant eight-day stay at a decrepit infirmary hallway in Montreal. Sixteen wasn't the room number, just what was written in black marker on the wall above my gurney."
In a 2012 interview, Lanegan expressed mixed feelings about the album: "If I heard it today I’d totally cringe, though there are a couple of songs on there, one of which I still play acoustically – 'Because of This' – that I think are really good."

Reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writes "Although it's similar to its predecessor, Scraps at Midnight is arguably his most accomplished - it might just miss matching the excellence of Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, but with songs as uniformly strong and performances as passionate as these, it comes damn close."

Personnel

Source:

Additional personnel

Technical personnel

  • John Agnello - mixing; engineer
  • John Burton - engineer
  • Greg Calbi - mastering
  • Terry Date - engineer
  • Jack Endino - engineer
  • Charles Peterson - photography
  • Judith Schaechter - artwork
  • Kenneth Sherwood - design