Buckley Days - Just Because

Elvis Costello about Jeff Buckley:


"I hope that people who liked him resist the temptation to turn his life and death into some dumb romantic fantasy--he was so much better than that. Not everyone can get up and sing something they take a liking to and make it their own, sing true to their heart and be curious about all different strains of music. Corpus Christi Carol was a completely conceived interpretation. I'd never heard the piece before and when I heard the original I realised what Jeff had done was even more amazing. He'd taken it into his own world. That's something my favorite classical musicians can do, be themselves but use all that expertise to make the music more beautiful. Jeff did that naturally. Only a handful of people are capable of that. I was amazed when he did meltdown. I asked him what he wanted to sing and he said he'd like to do one of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder in the original German! Absolutely fucking fearless. He was convinced he could sing it without rehearsal, just because he liked it. In the end he did a Purcell song, Dido's Lament, which is in danger of sounding incredibly poignant in retrospect: 'Remember me but forget my fate'. But he also sang Boy With the Thorn In His Side because he liked it, and Grace to show something of himself. When he started singing Dido's Lament at the rehearsal, there were all these classical musicians who could not believe it. Here's a guy shuffling up on-stage and singing a piece of music normally thought to be the property of certain types of specifically developed voice, and he's just singing, not doing it like a party piece, but doing something with it. My last memory of him was at the little party in the green room afterwards. There were all these people sitting round Jeff who'd never met before - Fretwork, the viol group, a classical pianist and some jazz player --all talking and laughing about music. He'd charmed everybody. I'd much rather remember that than anything."
Elvis Costello from Mojo Magazine, August 1997. Source: Wikiquote




Jeff Buckley sings Dido's Lament


"Technically he was the best singer that appeared, that had appeared, probably, I'm not being too liberal about this if I say in two decades. 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 – Guitarist from Led Zeppelin/The Yardbirds/solo from the BBC Documentary "Everybody Here Wants You"


Jeff Buckley, Live at Glastonbury Festival '95


"People my age all flocked to see Jeff, you know. Because we were so, just to hear that voice again. He would have been so pissed off with it by now. All these old toothless hags hanging around the stage door you know. He was just shit hot, I gotta say."
(Chrissie Hynde from the BBC Documentary "Everybody Here Wants You")



***

Chrissie Hynde doing Tim Buckely's Morning Glory

Morning Glory by Tim Buckley

I lit my purest candle close to my
Window, hoping it would catch the eye
Of any vagabond who passed it by,
And I waited in my fleeting house ...

Before he came I felt him drawing near;
As he neared I felt the ancient fear
That he had come to wound my door and jeer,
And I waited in my fleeting house

"Tell me stories," I called to the Hobo;
"Stories of cold," I smiled at the Hobo;
"Stories of old," I knelt to the Hobo;
And he stood before my fleeting house

"No," said the Hobo, "No more tales of time;
Don't ask me now to wash away the grime;
I can't come in 'cause it's too high a climb,"
And he walked away from my fleeting house

"Then you be damned!" I screamed to the Hobo;
"Leave me alone," I wept to the Hobo;
"Turn into stone," I knelt to the Hobo;
And he walked away from my fleeting house




Tim Buckley, Greetings from L.A. (full album) Start from 4:52 (Get on Top) and  35:34 (Make It Right)