**0:00–0:24 — Bass riff sets the terms**

The song begins with the bass figure alone, then lets drums and guitar fasten onto it. This is the first real arrival: not a full-band explosion, but a stable riff pattern that the rest of the track will keep returning to.

**0:25–0:51 — Verse narrows around Cantrell**

Jerry Cantrell’s verse enters inside that already-set motion. The vocal does not open the song outward; it tightens it, keeping the lines clipped and contained while the band holds the same forward path underneath.

**0:52–1:20 — Staley chorus opens the question**

Layne Staley takes over on “Into the flood again,” and the section changes function immediately. The music does not break from the riff-world so much as lift the vocal above it, turning the repeated trip and mistake into the song’s first broad refrain.

**1:21–2:08 — Return proves the cycle**

The next instrumental turn and second verse do not reset the song; they prove that the same pattern can carry another pass. Cantrell’s vocal comes back with a different lyric image, but the arrangement keeps the frame steady, making repetition part of the form rather than a delay before something new.

**2:09–3:21 — Final refrain stretches into reckoning**

The closing vocal section shifts from narration into direct questions: “Am I wrong?” and the homeward line that follows. Here lyric and form tighten together. The band stays locked while the vocal keeps pressing the same unresolved question, so the ending grows by insistence, not by adding a new section.

**3:22–3:26 — Cutoff**

The track releases quickly after the final drive, loosening its hold almost at once instead of staging a long fade or coda. The form is built from return: a riff stated, inhabited, questioned, and cut off.