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"Man in the Box" is a single by the American rock band Alice in Chains. It was released as a single in 1991 after being featured on the group's debut full-length album Facelift (1990). The song was included on the compilation albums Nothing Safe: Best of the Box (1999), Music Bank (1999), Greatest Hits (2001), and The Essential Alice in Chains (2006).
In the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, guitarist Jerry Cantrell said of the song, "That whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves; it helped Alice become what it was." The song makes use of a talk box to create the guitar effect. The original Facelift track listing credited only vocalist Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell with writing the song. All post-Facelift compilations credited the entire band. It is unclear as to why the songwriter credits were changed.
"Man in the Box" is widely recognized for its distinctive "wordless opening melody, where Layne Staley's peculiar, tensed-throat vocals are matched in unison with an effects-laden guitar" followed by "portentous lines like: 'Feed my eyes/ Can you sew them shut?', 'Jesus Christ/Deny your maker' and 'He who tries/Will be wasted' with Cantrell's drier, less-urgent voice." along with harmonies provided by both Staley and Cantrell in the lines 'Won't you come and save me'.
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