10 Perfect Rock Songs That Don't Have Any Lyrics

The story of Alice in Chains tends to get fairly depressing once you get to Jar of Flies. For as pretty as some of the songs like No Excuses and Don't Follow might sound when being played on acoustic guitar, you're hearing the sound of Layne almost throwing in the towel for his addictions, knowing that his demons have a hold on him and are never going to give him any leeway. You really hear Layne bleed on this record, but the most emotionally intense moment doesn't even have him playing half the time.

To break up all of the intense lyrical content on the record, Whale and Wasp is basically the result of Jerry Cantrell playing a little guitar piece in the studio, which eventually blossomed out into the different guitar harmonies that you hear now. Although the actual riff is already haunting, what really makes the song is the bends that he does in the main section of the song, putting two bends against each other and making a sound that feels like hearing a guitar crying out in pain.

As the track plays on, you get more extensions on to kind of smooth over the pain, only for those angsty bends to come soaring in one more time. Seeing how this was a record that was about their emotional struggles, it's hard not to see this song as telling the story of their own vices. Starting off with pain followed by moments of bliss before coming back to pain, this is practically a musical recreation of what it means to struggle with any type of addiction. It may feed you in the moment, but it's a high that will never really last.