I'm Above

i fully agree with the amphibian. a relationship that's not going too well.

the more i hear about Staley, Alice in Chains, and the grunge scene the more i feel unworthy to try to interpret it. We only hear such a fraction and its usually the bad stuff, and we try to make inferences about these guys as people and their messages.. Mad Season was another very sad story. These guys (made up of a member each of Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains, and John Baker Saunders - whose death in 1999, also from a heroin overdose, pretty much closed the door on any further work.

Having said that, if this was written by Layne, i think this is about his relationship with Jerry Cantrell. Although the two were apparently close, there was a lot of tension between them because of Layne's addictions and difficulty in getting him to work; Jerry on the otherhand seems like a bit of a workaholic by comparison (AiC had a tendency for short albums, whereas Cantrell's album Degradation Trip has 25 songs!)

It seems Layne joined Mad Season in a time when things weren't too peachy at the Alice camp, he needed to get away: "For clear space and soundess of mind/I've let you play me for some time"

"continue to pretend that I'm blind" - I think (perhaps understandably) Jerry minimised the influence Layne had in Alice, writing most of the songs, bugging him to get clean and get in the studio. But it was Layne's band too, and I think he felt that Jerry was ignoring his efforts.

"How is you're feeling so uneasy?/How is it that I feel fine"... I think Layne took the fact that Jerry was bothered by his wanting to join this sideproject as an admission of guilt almost. I think Jerry was really just trying to keep the band in one piece.

"I'm above/Over you I'm standing above/Claiming unconditional love/ Try to keep bad blood in the past...I have strength enough...to forgive/I desire peace where I live"

Layne feels like he's taking the moral high road by walking away, therefore he feels like he's "above" Jerry. He thinks Jerry doesn't get it because he isn't seeing it from a neutral angle: "Behind the unwhole truth you hide". But he also desires to work things out, and he still considers himself a part of Alice, "peace where I live", loves those guys unconditionally, he forgives them.

Anyways i expect its actually nothing like that I haven't done my research its just what I get out of the lyrics.