Why Alice in Chains’ Coldest Winter Was “Heaven Beside You” in 1996

Have you ever had that partner who’s been there through every high and low, the person who knows you better than almost anyone else? Years pass, co‑workers come and go, jobs shift, new friends enter your orbit, you try new movies, forget old ones—but this one constant partner remains. For Jerry Cantrell, the singer and songwriter behind “Heaven Beside You,” issued 30 years ago this week (January 29, 1996) that constant partner was Courtney Clarke. She was with him before Alice in Chains broke through with “Man in the Box,” through the Dirt era, through the transition from Mike Starr to Mike Inez, through the drug struggles and the sudden weight of fame.

By 1996, Cantrell—still deeply in love—realized their relationship couldn’t survive. They broke up, and “Heaven Beside You” became his way of processing the loss. She’s the “heaven” in the song, but Cantrell still felt the “hell” of being, in his own words, “super jaded,” and he didn’t want that darkness to spill into her life. Without him, she could “be who you want to be,” and he recognized her own struggles with empathy rather than blame. When he sings the bridge—“So there’s problems in your life, that’s fucked up, I’m not blind, I’m just see‑through, faded, super jaded, out of my mind”—it’s a self‑lacerating confession, an apology wrapped in a growl. The “coldest chill” is the emptiness left behind.

Released on January 29, 1996 as the second single from the band’s self‑titled album, “Heaven Beside You” remains one of Alice in Chains’ most cherished songs 30 years later.  Radio picked up the single earlier with it first appearing just before the new year on the Mainstream Rock Singles chart, peaking at #3.  In the middle of January 1996, “Heaven Beside You” started its Modern Rock Singles run, peaking at #6.  It reveals a rare, heart‑forward side of the band, even as it fits neatly within their catalog of wounded introspection.

About the doubts from those who thought that Alice in Chains would fall apart due to Layne Staley’s drug issues and participation in his side supergroup Mad Season (rumors swirled for much of the year that the band was done):  “It’s like having a new kid,” Jerry Cantrell told the Seattle Post Intelligencer in 1995.  “It’s totally different but it resembles its father.  You love it but you’ve got to settle in with it and let it be its own thing.  The word on the street was that we weren’t even supposed to make this record.  I wouldn’t expect it to be our last.”

Cantrell opens “Heaven Beside You” with a gentle country‑tinged guitar line, played like a slide, and it’s easy to picture him leaning against a ranch gate, singing the lead vocal into the dusk. There’s a bluesy looseness to his elongated twang—something echoed later on the album in “Over Now.” The song settles into a steady strum as Layne Staley joins for the chorus, singing “Heaven beside you,” while Cantrell alone delivers the stark counterpoint: “Hell within.” That folk‑rock calm is repeatedly shattered by the bullish surge of the “out of my mind” bridges, where the band’s unsettling rocked-up heaviness tramples the serenity Cantrell tries to retreat into. Those moments fracture the song’s fragile peace, mirroring his realization that the relationship is truly over.  As in, the rocky music represents the new rocky road Cantrell must endure in the future.   

After the flashy “Grind” music video which included a three-legged dog similar to the one on the ‘Alice in Chains’ tripod album cover, “Heaven Beside You” cools the visual tone using a blue tint.  The video shows blurred images, then a girl seated that we can see from the other side of a jar (a hint of ‘Jar of Flies’), a closeup shot of Cantrell looking in the camera.  The girl takes photos of each band member, then wanders around the city without a parent, just her wagon.  She eventually parks her little wagon at a beach as they show more photos of the band.  Cantrell is the only one performing the song, shown with his guitar and seated outside.  The video was directed by Frank W. Ockenfels III, who got acclaim from a photo shoot with singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman and later for his Spin magazine cover of Kurt Cobain, done in 1993. 

Though “Heaven Beside You” didn’t quite crossover into the mainstream, reaching just #52 on the Billboard Hot 100, it’s a beloved Alice in Chains single to this day and has grown to be their 1995 album’s most prominently remembered song.  On Spotify, its 90 million listens is more than double any other song on the ‘Tripod’ album.  It remains one of the band’s greatest detours away from grunge and metal, and a reason why Alice in Chains is one of the best bands in the last 40 years.