"I couldn't awake from the nightmare
It sucked me in and pulled me under
pulled me under
Oh, that was so real ..."
- "So Real" from
"Grace"
A little about Jeff
Those lines
take on a haunting, horrific nature now. It's as if some two or
three years ago Jeff Buckley wrote his own epitaph: now they echo
a sad, painful, farewell.
Jeff Buckley, 30-year-old genius of a
singer/songwriter/guitarist, and son of the great and legendary
Tim Buckley - a father whose shadow haunted, taunted and perhaps,
ultimately, consumed him - is dead, drowned in an offshoot of the
mighty Mississippi River in Memphis. The last time he was seen
alive he was swimming on his back, fully clothed, singing.
Perhaps, that is the memory those who loved his music, his
astonishing songs and incredible, incendiary voice - so like that
of his father - should cherish.
What to say then of a man claimed so young, who left just one
album, an EP and a bunch of singles, and guest appearance tracks,
yet was already considered one of the potential greats of his
times. Perhaps, that although he always spoke so much of living,
of the need to live life at its fullest, to smash the culture of
anti-life as he saw much of society, government and
authoritarianism as representing, Buckley was as close to death
as he was life. He walked such a fine line.
A product of the Greenwich Village folkie and bohemian circuit,
Buckley lived on the frontline, choosing to mix it amongst the
communes and squats where he found what he called the last real
writers, artists, expressionists; people he could relate to,
people unafraid of society's mores and dictates, willing to take
a chance.
Over 1994 and 1995 I spoke to him twice. Each time we spoke
mostly of life, what he saw around him, the injustices, the fear,
the laws that repelled him, the death of Western civilisation,
the loss of spirituality, the problems he had coming to terms
with the modern world and those in silent power, and, sometimes,
the shadow of Tim, the father he hardly knew who died when he was
just eight.
Tim Buckley knew no limitations; for him, songs were a
springboard for risk-tasking, for delving into the dark side of
man's nature and the indefinable nature of the spirit. Tim only
knew that once he found the edge, he had to go over it. And
through a series of extraordinary albums that tested the
limitations of jazz, folk and rock and his own freeform fusion of
the elements he took those who listened with him. On June 25,
1975, at the age of 28, Tim Buckley was dead from an accidental
drug overdose.
Today, he is revered as a true great, a man capable of charging
songs with an emotional depth few have ever reached or dared to
try and find: it was a trait that somehow passed itself onto
Jeff, even though he was forever trying not to admit it.
One stinking hot LA morning when the temperature had already
soared past the older 100 degree mark, Buckley who had been
talking with more and more lateralness for half-an-hour suddenly
said, "All this stuff about my Dad, I never knew him,
really. It's so hard to live with. I'm Jeff not Tim. Do you think
what they say is true?" The question never got answered. How
could you tell him, yes, he was so much his father's son. The way
he sang, that extraordinary multi-octave voice, the jaggedness of
his music, his willingness to throw it into freeform chaos, to
bend between genres, and the passion and the scary, fractured,
hanging on and yelling out emotion that flew effortlessly in
unforgettable codas that spanned much more than words can ever
transmit in songs such as "Grace" and "So
Real".
No, Jeff Buckley could never be told that, it didn't seem right.
He so much just wanted to be Jeff Buckley, and he so badly wanted
to change the world. Instead we talked about how LA's city
fathers owned a tank, about the 'no smoking in certain public
places' law, about how he didn't want to write the second album
the record company or anybody else wanted him to write and how he
would write the songs that he felt, no matter what anybody
thought. To Jeff, it was all part of beating and breaking the
system. The streets romanced him and the edge scared him - there
he was different from his dad. He already feared what he might
find out and he already feared what he might become.
Somewhere towards the end of the conversation, he spoke of
insanity - he saw it all around - and how he feared that he too
would become insane. Yet, you sensed there was something driving
him on, something terribly urgent and restless within him. He
could, easily, have taken the soft option; given the music
industry, the public, what they wanted - whatever that was. But
it would have been a defeat Jeff Buckley could never have lived
with and so he went on, taking a very long time to write his
second album, which he was finally just about to go into the
studio and record.
Buckley was due to begin working up material for his long-awaited
sophomore effort at Memphis's Easely Studios on Thursday, the day
he disappeared. Former Television leader Tom Verlaine was
originally down to produce the project, but that partnership was
scrapped in March when Buckley decided he needed more time to
come up with material for the album. Recording with Andy Wallace
- who produced Buckley's phenomenal debut - was scheduled to
begin at the end of June. The not-yet-titled album was set for
early 1998 release.
Although Buckley already had more than two-dozen songs finished,
he wanted to spend the next month preparing himself for the
production of the album. Buckley most recently appeared on a
track featuring Inger Lorre on Rykodisc's Jack Kerouac tribute,
'Kicks Joy Darkness'. He was also going to contribute a song to
Hal Willner's forthcoming Edgar Allan Poe tribute alongside Lou
Reed, Diamanda Galas and Leonard Cohen; and was to appear on the
'First Love, Last Rites' soundtrack.
The facts then as they are: On the night of Thursday, May 29,
Buckley was hanging out with a friend at the Mud Island Harbour
marina, half a mile inland off the Mississippi River in Memphis,
Tennessee. He and the friend were listening to a stereo and
playing a guitar when Buckley waded, fully clothed, waist-high
into the water. He started singing and laid back on the water,
when a boat went by causing waves to come in to the shore.
The friend on shore turned his back to move the stereo away from
the incoming waves and when he turned around, he couldn't see
Buckley. After a 10-minute search, the friend called local
police. The Memphis police department began dragging the waters
that night and continued to do so - weather permitting - for the
five following days. They also checked on the chance of him
having wandered out the water. Friends were contacted and people
in the area of the marina questioned. They came up with nothing.
Jeff Buckley simply vanished.
Finally, the news came through at about 7pm on June 4: the body
of Jeff Buckley had been found. Police said that a passenger on
the American Queen river boat spotted the body at the foot of the
city's famous Beale Street. The body had a pierced navel - like
Jeff's - and was in the same clothes he was described as wearing
when he disappeared. His body was subsequently identified by
friends and taken to the local morgue awaiting an autopsy. The
waiting was over and the tears could finally flow unchecked for a
beautiful spirit, tragically gone.
And so we have lost another young genius, and another man who saw
perhaps too much, too soon. Worst of all, we'll never know what
Jeff Buckley was thinking, what those 20-plus songs contained,
where he would have taken that unshakeable faith and idealism.
Some interviews you remember. And I remember that last one, so
well, too well. His voice is still as clear as if it that
interview was yesterday; its nuances, its pain, its anger, its
frustration and its love. Jeff Buckley could never hide how human
he really was.
Ironically, but fittingly, the words that best fit this tragedy
are Patti Smith's in "Beneath The Southern Cross" from
"Gone Again", her stunning comeback album of last year,
and one of two tracks on which Buckley appeared, his voice
soaring ethereal like some ghostly angel calling from the
infinite beyond. It seemed right he should sing with this woman
who has known more tragedy than most. They were like spirits.
"Gone Again" celebrated life after death and a great
spirit; the honesty of loss; an enduring love. Jeff understood
all those qualities and now in their light we should remember
this blazing light shaded far, far, too early.