Maybe it was just because I didn’t know you at all…
Death hangs all around Grace. It’s not just that Buckley died before he finished the next album, but a sense of morbidity that stains the texture of the songs like blood and wine. These are songs written in a classic jazz vocal style, “Mojo Pin” is the nineties heroin strung-out equivalent of “Gloomy Sunday” looking for escape into death from the life of the lovelorn. “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” is sung from the point of view of someone watching a funeral in dismal rainfall, “Eternal Life” sees it as ‘just like a prison for the walking dead.’
Within this aura of death is a sense of revelry in the flesh, the tactile. On “So Real” he is blissed out in the fabric of his lover’s dress, breathlessly affirming ‘that was so real.’ In “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” he pledges ‘my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.’
Of course, here I am omitting the most essential element of Jeff Buckley, that expressive, immense voice. He evokes legends like Billie Holiday and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. In “Last Goodbye” his delivery of the line ‘Kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me out of desire, babe, not consolation’ is just crushing. His cover of “Hallelujah” is so emotionally bare that it’s almost uncomfortable. This is tactile music, it should give you chills, raise the hairs on the back of your neck, stir something in your nervous system. It has done so every single time I’ve listened to it. His is a voice of ice cold water spreading like death through your veins. Grace is a perfect, flawless album.
Perfect => ***** — Number 2 on my best of 1994 list —
The Legacy Edition, in addition to an excellent documentary about the making of Grace and the music videos produced for “Grace”, “Last Goodbye”, “So Real” and “Eternal Life” (all very much of their period but low-key and artistic), we get an impressive disc of b-sides and rarities. These include the gorgeous outtake “Lost Highway”, a crazy cover of “Alligator Wine” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and that unavoidable rock statement, “Kick Out the Jams” live. Of course, none of it is quite up to the quality of the actual album but are interesting additions to have (and they’re all on a separate disc instead of tacked on to the album, which I appreciate). It’s unnecessary, but there’s enough of interest to make it worth getting.
Now don’t tell me I only love his work because he’s dead. Who the fuck are you?
I could totally go for listening to some Grace right now. I always thought that Heath Ledger looked like Buckley on that album cover…..which is ironic because he’s passed on too…
Yeah, never occurred to me, but he really did. Or rather, 70% Heath Ledger, 30% James Franco. I wonder how ‘My Sweetheart the Drunk’ would have turned out if he’d lived to complete it. “New Year’s Prayer” is one of my favourite Buckley songs and there’s a lot of interesting stuff on Sketches, it’s too bad we’ll never know how he would have completed it.
very true. and i totally see the james franco. bizarre.