“Long Gone Day” by Mad Season

"Long Gone Day" is the smoky, oddball detour on Above, the only studio album Mad Season ever made, and it was issued in 1995 as the record's third single, a promo CD in the US. Layne Staley wrote the words, with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees chipping in extra lyrics and sharing the microphone, while Lanegan, Mike McCready and Barrett Martin share the credit for the music.

It's the band at its most adventurous, drifting toward jazz, blues and prog: loose, rolling percussion, Skerik's saxophone curling through the haze, and two gravelly, haunted voices swapping verses, Staley's keening set against Lanegan's low, dark rumble. Rolling Stone heard it as proof that the band could win with restraint as well as force. They first played it live at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle in April 1995.

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