Music has always been a part of my life -- now welcome to the journey. Just a little blog to reminisce, review, rant and rave about the music in my life. "Music is my mother and my father. It is my work and my rest,my blood, my compass, my love" ~Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley was best described the one night 11 years ago at the Annual New York City Tribute as everyone's lover. That statement could not be truer. Everyone at Arlene's had their "first time I heard Jeff" story, akin to comparing our first night to a sensuous lover. Everyone knows where they were the first time they heard his angelic voice.
What I loved about the event that Robert Urban once produced each year was that it wasn't just a carbon copy of Grace...it was songs that Jeff performed and loved. Starting off with Zeppelin's Kashmir and The Rain Song, the night continued with incredible artists such as Elijah Black, Tracy Stark, Randy Jones, Jason Morris, Tanya Holt, Marcus Simeone, and Gretchen Reinhagen. We heard Everybody Hear Wants You and Mojo Pin covered by Tara Lynne, some Dylan, some Billie Holiday, and Maya Solovey and guests performed gorgeous renditions of So Real, Lilac Wine, and Lover, You Should Have Come Over. The biggest surprise was hearing Yard of Blonde Girls, covered beautifully by Mike Linkens. Hearing Hallelujah as a duet was simple something none of us had EVER thought of and it was nothing short of magical and Jeff would have loved it. Another year goes by, and more are discovering the wonder of Jeff that we have all known and loved for years. His mystery will always draw people to him, his (in)famous father deepens the enigma, and we will always wonder what would have become of Jeff had he lived another circle around the sun.
He had a way of playing the most beautiful song you've ever heard and still with the way that he sang, create a bit of an uncomfortable edge to it if he felt like it - mostly with his voice. ~ Chris Cornell
It was during summer classes of my sophomore year at college. During my daily ritual of drinking a diet coke and watching MTV News for breakfast, I heard the news. Kurt Loder was talking about some guy named Jeff Buckley that had gone missing. Erroneously, I first thought he meant Jeff Beck. Who was Jeff Buckley, I kept asking myself while trying to study for an exam on Canterbury Tales ... who the hell is Jeff Buckley. Fast forward three years later and I am in the gym at Macquarie University in Sydney when I hear it. It was a voice I had never heard and he was singing Leonard Cohen. I had not made the connection in my memory yet when they mentioned his name: Jeff Buckley.
I rushed to the mall and right into the record store (God I miss those). I went right to the B's and found a few of his albums and went to the counter. As the lovely lady was scanning my purchases she mentioned how sad it was that he died so young. Heartbroken, I took my purchase back to our flat as I began to listen to Grace for the very first time, clearly marking a moment in my life as before and after I had listened to Grace. Then I finally remembered where I had heard his name before. May 29th marks the anniversary of when Jeff sang Whole Lotta Love while wading into the Wolf River for a swim. Three days previous, he had played his final show at Barristers in his new home city of Memphis. At 30 years of age, he left behind a gaping whole of need. With his first release Grace throttling him into celebrity and into a world where his heroes were praising him, there was now an emptiness of what could have been.
(c) MerriCyrr
Twenty plus years on and Jeff is still somehow not as well known as many would assume. But those who are fans, were quickly caught up in the aura of Jeff and a bit of the mystique of who he was. While he fought those who tried to make the connection to his very absentee father, Tim Buckley, the physical and musical similarities were too obvious. Like many before him, he fought celebrity, playing under fake names just to play a show without being Jeff Buckley. If you listen to Sketches, you quickly realize he was going to be like U2, changing his sound as he went along. Would it have been the one last nail in that red glitter coffin? I doubt it, but companies wanted Grace Part 2 and Jeff was not going to deliver that. Jeff Buckley was a complete package deal: looks, talent, and the equally talented musician father. His death rounded out and solidified what is now his mythic status. As of the music gods gave him back, he was found floating at the end of Beale Street on June 4th.
The community of those who adore Jeff seems to grow slowly, but not at an Elvis level. In truth, it really is his life and not his tragic death that is celebrated. But to truly honor Jeff, we need to celebrate and remember his music. But not just Hallelujah. Listen to Mojo Pin, What Would You Say, or his glorious cover of The Way Young Lovers Do and appreciate Jeff for what he was: an artist.
How do you want to be remembered?
Jeff: As a good friend. I don't really need to be remembered...I hope the music's remembered.
Grace is basically a death prayer. Not something of sorrow but just casting away any fear of death. No relief will come, you'll really just have to stew in your life until it's time to go. But sometimes, somebody else's faith in you can do wonders. ~Jeff Buckley
There are not many musicians that I can say "I remember the first time I heard them." In a gym on a June Thursday morning in Sydney Australia, I heard a voice that would forever change my life. As I ran on the treadmill, Hallelujah played on the TV. A voice has never affected my soul as much as Jeff Buckley's.
Within two hours, I was listening to Grace. While it was released on August 23, 1994, it was only mainstream in Australia at the time. Grace wouldn't achieve its crowning glory until, sadly, Jeff died in 1997. However, Grace was not his first album. The four song EP Live from Sin-e was the catalyst that put him into the minds of the music executives.
But why is Grace being placed into one of the most influential and best albums of our time? Was it the music? Was it the mysterious Jeff with his storied father? Or was it simply a combination of both? His voice and intricacies of each song have been lauded by many including Bono and Jimmy Page: Technically, he was the best singer that had appeared probably in - I'm not being too liberal about this - if I say, in two decades.
So let's break down this album
Mojo Pin
It's a story about addiction - to a woman or drugs - not sure. Jeff's voice, almost at a whisper welcomes us to this song, tangled with background anonymous sounds and a silent cymbal, before we are hit with heavy guitar riffs. Possibly, this could symbolize the ups and downs of said addiction.
Jeff once said of the song: Sometimes if somebody you feel you need... the whole universe tells you that you have to have her, you start watching her favorite TV shows all night, you start buying her the things she needs, you start drinking her drinks, you start smoking her bad cigarettes, you start picking up her nuances in her voice, you sleep in safe sometimes the most dangerous thing... this is called Mojo Pin." (Astoria, London, UK, 18/01/95).
The welts of your scorn, my love, give me more
Send whips of opinion down my back, give me more
Well it's you I've waited my life to see
It's you I've searched so hard for...
Grace
And the rain is falling and i believe
My time has come
It reminds me of the pain
I might leave
Leave behind
Someone once asked me if I had to chose one more song to hear before I leave this plain, what would it be? I answered Grace. They were assuming I would say Stairway, Brokedown Palace, or something else profound, but Grace is my song. It shows readiness and, ironically enough, Grace to face the destiny that we all have and the journey we take to reach it.
I will let Jeff explain:
It's about not fearing death, or fearing any of those countless slings and arrows that you suffer sometimes on this earth, because somebody loves you. You're not afraid to go, you're not afraid to withstand what you need to withstand because there's a tremendous fuel that you feel regenerating inside because of someone else's love for you. That's what Grace is about. And it's just about life sometimes being so long. At the time I was anticipating leaving Los Angeles for New York. So I was waiting to go. I'm not afraid to go, I'm not afraid to die, I'm not afraid to go away from this place or from any place but it just goes so slow. And I had somebody who loved me in New York. A lot. And it was amazing. It still is.
This song has so many layers, clocks, rhythms, acoustic guitars. It is also very eerie how Jeff seemingly accepts his mortality in this song.
Last Goodbye
A sadly sweet breakup song. It's the negotiation and pleadingjust before the final goodbye kiss.
Sad, desperate breakup song
This is our last embrace Must I dream and always see your face? Why can't we overcome this wall? Baby, maybe its just because you didn't know you at all
Lilac Wine
Jeff loved Nina Simone. His cover of this song demonstrates his ability to transcend the rock genre. He would also cover her songs I Loves You Porgy, and Be Your Husband.
So Real
This song has that eerie foreshadowing of water. It also gave us a goofy Jeff video that includes gorilla suits, a pre-hipster bike ride through Brooklyn, and a diner scene.
And I couldn't awake from the nightmare that sucked me in and pulled me under Pulled me under Oh... that was so real I love you, but I'm afraid to love you
Hallelujah
No doubt, Jeff's biggest hit. I have explained my sentiment on the song previously here (see link)
Incredible accordion, harpiscordish beginning, a guilty afterthought to a love lost, possibly due to his own doing.
Lonely is the room, the bed is made, the open window lets the rain in Burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him My body turns and yearns for a sleep that will never come
Corpus Christi Carol
Jeff's beautiful take on a medieval song about Christ and his Knight.
Eternal Life
This song is definitely one of the few "political" songs that shows Jeff's passion for peace and love and his rebuttal of traditional religion.
There's no time for hatred, only questions What is love, where is happiness, what is life, where is peace? When will I find the strength to bring me release? Tell me where is the love in what your prophet has said? Man, it sounds to me just like a prison for the walking dead I've got a message for you and your twisted hell You better turn around and blow your kiss goodbye to life eternal
Dream Brother
Very haunting and you can feel the influence of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jeff's spiritual sufi singer influence. It is a song to Jeff's friend, his dream brother, about leaving his pregnant girlfriend. It is one of the first songs where Jeff seemingly references his absent father, singer Tim Buckley.
Don't be like the one who made me so old Don't be like the one who left behind his name 'Cause they're waiting for you like I waited for mine And nobody ever came
Songs added in re-release
Forget Her
Such a heartbreaking song, even more so the story behind it. Jeff never wanted this song released. It is about his relationship with another singer. Sadly, she heard it. It is one of my favorites (although it could use some more organ and Hammond B3).
Well my tears falling down as I try to forget, Her love was a joke from the day that we met. All of the words, all of her men, All of my pain when I think back to when.
Lost Highway
Cover of Leon Payne song done simply with Jeff and guitar ... and a twang.
I was just a lad, nearly twenty two Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you But now I'm lost, too late to pray Lord, I paid the cost, on the lost highway
Parchman Farm
A Bukka White American blues song about doing time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary
In a way, Jeff's short life and music career is exactly what he wanted. I believe the music industry would have destroyed his fragile shell. At one point, after Grace became popular, Jeff would play under other names at small venues.
There was a time in my life not too long ago when I could show up in a cafe and simply do what I do, make music, learn from performing my music, explore what it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or entertain an audience who don't know me or what I am about. In this situation I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender. I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together, this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming it
Jeff was once asked how he wanted to be remembered. Besides being a good friend, his only wish was that his music was remembered. Jeff, your wish is our command.
He was Plant and Page in one, on a technical level. ~Brad
He played a version of Indifference for me. Man, I tell you, I'll never forget the way he did it...I was just fuckin' speechless...one of the most memorable moments of my life. ~Eddie Vedder
It isn't a surprise to anyone that I am slightly obsessed with singer Jeff Buckley. I was left breathless when my friend asked essentially, what's the big fucking deal with Jeff Buckley? (Completely paraphrased with my exaggeration after three glasses of red wine of course). I would have appreciated some sensitivity but nonetheless...So what is the big deal about Jeff Buckley?
From the second I heard Jeff in Australia, he had my soul. There is something both romantically and tragically mysterious about Jeff. And yet there is something so pure about him. Recently, I met a musician who worked with Jeff and spoke of his musical talent as well as his goofiness.
Let's break down the elements of Jeff Buckley.
He is the son of a musician with a tragic ending.
PMCarlson
Irony and rock and roll coincidence that Jeff not only looked and sounded like his father, folk legend, Tim Buckley (who walked about from both Jeff and his mother, Mary) but he also died suddenly, at the height of stardom. Also ironically, he was "discovered" at a musical memorial for his father at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn. His octave range and musical abilities impressed Bono, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and Paul McCartney.
(c)MerriCyr
I started to play Grace constantly. constantly and the more, the more I listened to the album, the more, the more I heard — the more I appreciated of Jeff and Jeff’s talents and Jeff’s total ability to which he was just a wizard and it was close to being my favorite album of the decade. We actually made a point of going to hear him play and seeing and it was absolutely scary. One of the things is a little frightening was that I was convinced that he probably did things in tunings and he didn’t. He was doing things in standard tuning. I thought, oh gee he really is clever isn’t he ? He quite clearly had his feet on the ground and he said his imagination was flying, flying way, way out there, beyond, beyond. Jeff Buckley was one of the greatest losses of all. ~Jimmy Page
He was handsome (No words necessary).
He only released one album Grace was the only album that Jeff blessed to Sony. While he was working on Sketches For (My Sweetheart the Drunk), it was not in the stages of even being ready to be released, with Jeff reportedly unsatisfied with the recordings. We've been blessed with many previously un-released tracks and live performances. But many wonder - what would Sweetheart have truly been if Jeff had done waded into the Wolf River.
He was enigmatic yet simple.
When Jeff loved people, he loved them unconditionally. Whether others thought that someone was a big freak or the best person in the world, it didn't make any difference to him. He loved people for what they were, unconditionally. However, he wasn't the kind of person that someone could pursue any sort of friendship with; it usually had to be on his terms. He said that he was like a cat. When I come around - it's going to be often, but it's going to be when I want. ~Leah Reid
He was schizophrenic in a good way. I mean, he was always an actor. The last week he was here I was going to get lunch and he was coming out of this Mexican restaurant and he saw me walking down the street so he started prancing like a fairy. And I said "Jeff, someone's going to pull you over in a pickup truck and kill you, just like in the end of Easy Rider they're gonna shoot you off your bike." He thought that was hilarious. I felt really awful because I warned him about everything except the river. ~Andria Lisle
He died at the pinnacle of his career. Jeff had everything in front of him...and it terrified him I think. Many times he would play under pseudonyms or false band names just to be able to play a club. He didn't want to be heckled, swooned over, or lied to. Jeff just wanted to play music. Grace might have been the purist Jeff Buckley album we could have ever been gifted had he lived.
The day I discovered Jeff, the truth that I would never hear that angelic voice live was thrust upon me by the checkout girl at the record store. Yes, I went out and bought every CD released with his name. He haunted me in my dreams...seriously. He lived under my bed but would chase me around the apartment, laughing. Ever since that first day, the very same day I heard Jeff, he has been a part of me. Ask people, I give them Grace as a gift. I tell them to listen to him. Turn down the lights, turn up the sound, and experience Jeff the way he wanted us to.
Jeff's song Mojo Pin, as he said, was a song about a dream. Mojo Pin, could be a reference to a drug, a needing of something or someone to be desired. The song paints a picture of a tortured lover who asks for their return otherwise seeking solace in Mojo Pin. When you ask anyone who gets Jeff, who understands the need to hear the voice, feel the soul, this song suffices. Jeff describes the torture he lays upon us ... Well it's you I've waited my life to see ... It's you I've searched so hard for...
**Quotes taken from the book Jeff Buckley A Wish For Song by Merri Cyr. **
I
want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds
and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be
dashed against the rocks
Jeff
Buckley was the purity that the music industry needed in the early 90's. He was raw, emotional, talented and vulnerable. For those lucky ones
to have seen him perform at Sin-e, it must have been magic. He was a
perfectionist - keeping so many recordings to himself only to be found
after his untimely passing 17 years ago. All of those recordings
remastered by others - would they have been good enough for him?
Jeff
was becoming a star - much probably to his dismay. His desire was to be
an artist. However, this artist was being talked about by those he
called inspirations - Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, and Jimmy Page.
Where
would he be today? With the world in such disarray - misconstrued
values and the state of music in an odd place - would he be at the
forefront of the few who have their own ideas and visions of sound?
Yes
- Jeff haunted me in my dreams - and he is welcome back at any time -
for Jeff has a place in my life. Albeit this time you don't have to
live under my bed. When I listen to his music, I am taken back to the
shores of Australia. I can taste the bitter heartbreak of a naive love,
smell the eucalyptus in the early morning, and feel the hot sun on those
salty ocean days. He transports me to a memory and a time when YouTube
didn't exist, and visions are captured only in my mind.
On
May 29, 1997, the Mississippi took the soul of a musician and offered
his body to the shore at Beale Street - as a last testament to the
musician he had become maybe. When I walk past St. Anne's in the
morning, I imagine Jeff singing at the memorial for his father all those
years ago. Jeff was a Wished for Song.
Kurt was fairly quiet and introverted most of the time. Jeff was the
opposite. He was very much full of life and had a lot to say. He was
somebody in love with experiencing everything. Within a very short time,
he had all these famous old rock stars coming to his shows. Which put a
a lot of pressure on him. People talked about his concerts the way they
used to talk about Hendrix: they'd sit there, wide-eyed, telling you
stories about him. He definitely had an aura. It's impossible to say
what it is exactly a guy like that has, that is so attractive to other
people. But he had more of it than anyone I had ever met.
~Chris Cornell, Jeff's friend and music director of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.
Sketches is anything except what you'd expect for the follow up to Jeff's debut album, Grace. Jeff would be proud of that. He began writing songs for the album he wanted to call My Sweetheart the Drunk and was recording many of these songs when he swam infamously into the Wolf River on May 29, 1997. He left behind many unfinished songs and recordings that had to be interpreted and assumed finished in the way Jeff would have wanted. Helping in that, at the request of his mother, was friend Chris Cornell. Sketches is two discs of ups and downs. There is a lot of scorn, the powerful, heartbreak, isolation, and acceptance. His lyrics show growth, chance, and not Grace part II, a leap Sony would not have been happy with for sure. Who knows what would have become of Jeff. The truth that music was his home - and that the music he wanted to create and enjoy. When you start to perform under fake names just to enjoy playing a small show for the sake of music...who knows how long Jeff would have survived the industry. Easier said then done now as opposed to the big label 1990's.
Twenty years since we heard what was going on in Jeff's mind and heart. There was change going on within Jeff. The sounds he used to record Grace at Bearsville Studio differs greatly from the raw sound of the songs he recorded in Memphis and in New York City for Sketches. There is one eerie similarity between the two albums: Jeff's references to river, water, and drowning. Below, some lyrics from each track.
Disc 1 The Sky Is A Landfill The storm has ripped the shelter
Of illusion from our brow
This power is no mystery to us now. Leave your spirit genocide
The cancer you won't remove
We cast our funeral rose inside
And bury the need to prove
Our mutilation is to gain from the system
Everybody Here Wants You I know the tears we cried
Have dried on yesterday
The sea of fools has parted for us
There's nothing in our way
My love Opened Once Just like the ocean
Always in love with the moon
It's overflowing now Nightmares By The Sea I've loved so many times and I've drowned them all
From their coral graves, they rise up when darkness falls
With their bones they'll scratch the window, I hear them call
"Don't know what you asked for."
Yard Of Blonde Girls Through the yard
Through the yard of blonde girls
Through the river and the sea
Gold sharks glittering
A tree of white
Breaks the earth
The streets where Lola played Witches' Rave You'd like to see him suffer
For you fantasy and thrill
He fell sick while we made love
He's out there, somewhere, still
New Year's Prayer Leave your office
Run past your funeral
Leave your home, car
Leave your pulpit
Join us in the streets where we
Join us in the streets where we
Don't belong, don't belong
You and the stars
Throwing light Morning Theft True self is what
Brought you here, to me
A place where we can
Accept this love
Friendship battered down by
Useless history Unexamined failure Vancouver We're where we belong
It should end here
Until the end of time
Beyond the moment
That ends our bondage
I am your failed husband contender
I'm your loan shark of bliss. You & I You and I
Ah, the calm below that poisoned the river wild
You and I
Tears that dry on a rude awakened child
Where you look down
I've walked before
Burning holes
With eyes of liquid brown
If we had only known
In a way
We wouldn't reach this ground
You were my only home
Disc 2 Nightmares By The Sea Stay with me under these waves, tonight
Be free for once in your life tonight
New Year's Prayer Stand absolved behind your electric chair, dancing
Past the sound within the sound
Past the voice within the voice Haven't You Heard Paranoia will write the world prayer
Make sure that you fit in the right holes
But when you take his offer, you're done for I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted To Be) We had a birthplace in common
We had separate beds and lives
I'll just sit here and glow
Break out the oldest pictures
Hand your ruined letters out to dry
We had a birthplace in common
And separate beds and lives
And lives, and lives
Murder Suicide Meteor Slave Welcome down to paradise rock
There is no single entrance
With the stars to revolve around
There is no real underground Back In N.Y.C. You're sitting in your comfort you don't believe I'm real,
You cannot buy protection from the way that I feel.
Your progressive hypocrites hand out their trash,
But it was mine in the first place, so I'll burn it to ash.
And I've tasted all the strongest meats,
And laid them down in colored sheets.
Laid them down in colored sheets.
Who needs illusion of love and affection
When you're out walking in the streets with your mainline connection?
Demon John Today or tonight
Better get yourself together
And transcend it, a burst of light
Blaze stars into me
While the love breaks through here and now Your Flesh Is So Nice Jewel Box Diamonds from the pavement
Where a broken glass had been
Just like these troubles that I'm leaving to the wind
Like sapphires in boxcars speeding towards the end
Like thieves, my bad luck grows
Satisfied Mind (Cover) My Friends and My Lovers, I Will Leave, There's No Doubt
But One Things For Certain, When It Comes My Time
I'll Leave This Old World With A Satisfied Mind Gunshot Glitter [Bonus Track] Down to the sea out of the skies
Of gold cards and casual tears
I have only come to see you shine
Feminine smiles the right side is wise, more than I.
I wanna be your lover,
Lipstick my name across your mirror.
Blood red with flaked gunshot glitter
And be one with all you disowned in your young life. You paranoia politician diva.
You paranoia politician diva. Thousand Fold [Bonus Track] There ain't a star born that brightens
More than you, you always should have known,
I'll illuminate your question,
Long time ago I'd died and gone.
What has brought the question?
Time has brought the question.
Come and call the question,
Oh, oh, oh.
Here are the stars, same thing again
I am a railroad track abandoned
With the sunset
Forgetting
I ever happened
That I ever happened
