“Grey Ghost”

“Here’s how messed up former Soul Coughing singer Mike Doughty was in his early days trying to make it as a musician in New York.

When he heard that his friend, singer Jeff Buckley, had died, he was so jealous of his success that his initial reaction was rage — not that his friend had died, but that his early death would likely turn him into a legend.

“I was just so utterly trapped in myself,” says Doughty, who recounts those years in his riveting new memoir, “The Book of Drugs.” “I immediately thought, he’s in the firmament now. And I was right, but you don’t think that about a friend who dies. What a horrible mind-set, the craziness of thinking that this is a game, and the guy who’s dead won. Utterly insane.”

LINK

“Born of New York’s downtown scene, Soul Coughing was a forerunner of Twenty One Pilots, using loops, samples and a hip-hop cadence to color Doughty’s literate wordplay.

The success of the singles “Circles” and “Super Bon-Bon” opened up a range of rock star experiences, from jamming with the Dave Matthews Band to snorting heroin with fellow singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley.”

LINK

“Oh, he will not
Walk out the river now
He will not walk out the river
He will not walk out the river, singing
Don’ fall through the stars
Don’t fall through them
Don’t fall through the stars
Don’t fall through them

On the docks in Memphis
With the boom box, nodding out, singing…”

LINK