“River of Deceit” by Mad Season

"River of Deceit" was the first single from Above, the only studio album by Mad Season, released in 1995 on Columbia, and it's the song the band is remembered for. The music grew out of rehearsals the group held before Layne Staley came aboard, and the writing credit goes to all four: Staley, Mike McCready, drummer Barrett Martin and John Baker Saunders.

Staley wrote the lyrics, and he was reading Khalil Gibran's The Prophet at the time, which gives the song its searching, almost meditative cast; it was also partly about his drug addiction, the addiction that would lead to his death in 2002. The music matches him: a slow, murky groove, guitars circling like a river current, Staley's voice weary but clear. It went to number two on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and nine on Modern Rock Tracks.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.