"A Looking in View" is a song by American rock band Alice in Chains, featured on their fourth studio album, Black Gives Way to Blue (2009). It was the first publicly released song from the album and was available for purchase on June 30, 2009,[1] and for a limited time it was available as a free download through the official Alice in Chains website.[6] Although it was not the album's first official single,[7] Rock stations across the U.S. started playing the song after it was made available for streaming.[7][8] The first official radio single, "Check My Brain", was released in August 2009.[9]
"A Looking in View" was Alice in Chains' first release with new vocalist William DuVall, who replaced the band's original singer, Layne Staley, in 2006. Vocalist/guitarist Jerry Cantrell shares lead vocals with DuVall. The song was the band's first release since 1999's "Fear the Voices". Clocking in at a length of seven minutes and six seconds, it is the second longest song Alice in Chains has released as a single (official or non-official), behind the MTV Unplugged version of "Over Now", as well as their fourth longest song to date, behind "Frogs" from their self-titled 1995 album, "All I Am" from their 2018 album Rainier Fog, and "Phantom Limb" from their 2013 album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. The song peaked at No. 12 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart,[10] at No. 38 on the Alternative Songs chart,[11] and at No. 27 on the Hot Rock Songs chart.[12]
Guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell said of the song in the press release:
The song basically speaks to any number of things that keep you balled up inside. A cell of our own making with an unlocked door that we choose to remain in. Focusing our attention inward instead of reaching out to a much larger world. I think this is common to us all. It's funny how hard we fight to hang on to a bone we can't pull through a hole in the fence, or how difficult it is to put down the bag of bricks and move on.[14]
Release and reception
On June 30, 2009, "A Looking in View" was made available for purchase via iTunes and Amazon,[1][15] and for a limited time it was available as a free download through the official Alice in Chains website in early July.[6] Although it wasn't the album's first radio single, Rock stations across the U.S. started playing the song.[8][7] As of mid-August 2009, it has peaked at number 12 on the BillboardHot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart,[10] at number 38 on the BillboardAlternative Songs chart,[11] and at number 27 on the BillboardHot Rock Songs chart.[12]
The music video for "A Looking in View" was directed by Stephen Schuster.[17][18] Shooting wrapped on June 20, 2009[19] and the video premiered on Alice in Chains official website on July 7, 2009.[20][21] It was Alice in Chains' first music video since 1999's "Get Born Again",[22] and the first music video since 1994's "I Stay Away" that does not feature the band. It features actors Sacha Senisch, Chad Post and Devin Zephyr instead.[23]
At the 6:55 mark of the video,[24] a woman (played by Sacha Senisch)[23] is seen lying on a cracked desert floor similarly to the cover art of Alice in Chains' 1992 album Dirt.[25]
Schuster explained the music video to VideoStatic:
"'A Looking In View' is an epic track that they wanted to release virally along with a music video/short film, which was perfect since the song clocks in at a bit over 7 minutes. After sitting down with the band, it became clear that the song dealt with the idea of people really struggling and dealing with intense psychological issues, finding themselves trapped within their own heads and often solely holding the key to their own freedom. That was the basic platform I stepped off from as I started to look at all the physical and mental issues that people deal with.
After all the writing and research, the video ended up being about the lives of these three individuals all locked inside rooms of their own design with a single wall separating each of them. It was more the idea that though we are all individuals and we all deal with our own screwed-up issues and disorders, there are others around us that are also dealing with their own issues. The young male (Chad Post)[23] struggles with the obsessions of time, symmetry, arrangement, numbers, and the fear of causing harm to the person he loves. The female (Sacha Senisch)[23] struggles with body dysmorphic disorder - the idea that she looks older or heavier than she is and the burdens that society instills within her. The older male (Devin Zephyr)[23] is a religious zealot with struggles with the white washed lie of holiness and the lustful manifestations of his own sins. In the end, Jerry [Cantrell] and William [DuVall] really wanted to show this as a redemptive song and how, as individuals, we can find freedom from within ourselves."[26]
