Has it really been 10 years since the death of Jeff Buckley? I’m not very fond of celebrating death, but this is a very special case. I’ve always wanted to write a little something about his music’s impact on my life, and this seems as best a time as any to do so. Today we grieve, but his music will always live on and a telling fact of how influential he still is with people discovering his music everyday.
I would like to explain where I’m coming from with this. Around the time I was a freshman in high school around 1997, I didn’t really have any kind of knowledge or interest in music. I would just listen to the radio, watch mtv, listen to friends about whatever was good at the time. Hear a song, like it, then instantly forget in a week, rinse and repeat. I really had no idea what music could do, how it could affect a person nor did i care. The years surrounding that time is when I was exposed to the most important album i’ve ever heard and a singer-songwriter that would completely change the type of music that i listen to this very day.
I remember hearing “Last Goodbye” on the radio one day, but at the time I had inferior taste in music and I never gave the song much attention. It wasn’t till many years later when one night I was driving home and heard “Grace” on WEGL, the college radio station here in Auburn. That song caught hold of me, the opening guitar line and that voice. God, that voice – so haunting that I could never forget, one that hit me emotionally to my very core.
When I first picked up the album at nearby music store, I remember the words the person working the cash register said to me when he noticed that I was purchasing Grace. “Every man should own this album,” he said. After listening to the album for myself, there isn’t one person I haven’t said that very exact sentence to when discussing Grace. What more is there to say really? How else could I describe that listening experience as a way of looking into the man’s soul.
After Jeff Buckley’s drowning in the Mississippi River on this very day 10 years ago, we’re left with that one album to remember him by. Of course, we have what he was in the process of recording that ended up being Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk). Knowing that it was incomplete and never intended to be listened to, I just can’t bear to hear it a lot of the time. We’re left with that potential though, of what he could’ve been capable of if his life wasn’t so tragically cut short.
His music lives on, and his influence is seen through many, especially through the many tribute songs that were recorded. My idea was to gather all of them, but I didn’t realize there were so many. Here are a handful of those songs, so enjoy. You can check out more over at I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS, as there are nice descriptions for all of the songs.
Jeff Buckley | “Satisfied Mind”
Jeff Buckley | “Grace”
Jeff Buckley Tribute Songs
“Memphis” | PJ Harvey
“You Were Right” | Badly Drawn Boy
“I Heard You Singing (live)” | Ours
“Just Like Anyone” | Aimee Mann
“Rilkean Heart” | Cocteau Twins
“In A Flash” | Ron Sexsmith
“Wave Goodbye” | Chris Cornell
“Trying Not to Think About It” | Juliana Hatfield
“Bandstand in the Sky” | Pete Yorn
“Valley of Sound” | Heather Nova
“Memphis Skyline” | Rufus Wainwright
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gosh, it’s been 10 years already? his music is great. thank for that jeff.
thankyou for this
I always loved his version of I know Its over….so lovely…always hated hallelujah tho…mostly becoz thats what everyone thinks of when they think of Jeff and he was such a wonderful song writer….maaaw I get teary just thinkin about him
-)
Hey, you might wanna check out “Duncain Sheik – A Body Goes Down” from the album Humming.
He also played with drummer Matt Johnson, Jeff’s drummer.
Error…. DUNCAN
I’ve read that the content of the Grifters’ final album, “Full Blown Possession,” was largely inspired by Buckley’s death; he was supposed to record some material with them but died before the sessions. The final track, “Contact Me Now,” seems especially appropriate. It’s a really great CD, incidentally. What’s it sound like? Kinda like Spoon and Robyn Hitchcock trying to recreate the vibe of “Goats Head Soup.”