"It's Never Over": More on the magic of Jeff Buckley

About three hours ago I finished reading David Browne's dual biography of Tim and Jeff Buckley, a compelling read for any Buckley fan as avid as I which tells two equally interesting and tragic tales, spun thirty years apart. Though the book has, to an extent, inspired me to look further into the music of Buckley Sr., I don't plan on giving cash prizes to anyone who can guess which of the two I was more smitten with. The experience has lead me to reiterate in text my love for Buckley's masterpiece:

Having unspecified relationship troubles with Rebecca Moore, an un-discovered Jeff Buckley began fiddling with a song idea in 1992, detailing his pretty standard feelings of inadequacy, regret and all round heart-ache. The song was called "Lover, You Should've Come Over". And, from the corner of Sin-e amongst the clatter of forks and the bustle of the street outside, the greatest Love-Lost song of all time was born. From the mere title, in itself a lingual treat that feels good in your mouth, to the melodic moaning, crooning and howling which end the song, communicating what words couldn't quite reach, it remains to me one of the most perfect musical pieces ever written... and I get such a strange rush out of realizing I was alive and well when this happened. It reminds me that music, I mean really great, life-changing music, is not dead.

But the untouchable, untouched musical passion that resided in Jeff Buckley isn't the driver in this case: it only necessitates what makes "Lover" great; it gives the song its force and sharpness with which to penetrate us, all the way to that deep part of the human experience where Jeff lived, all the time. Once he's there, we hear what he's saying, and if the moment has caught us just right, we'll damn near weep.

Because it bends a lot of people out of shape to know it, I think, but every hurt and every happiness you ever suffer never leaves. They make you who you are, and you carry them around with you, in varying forms, til you die. That's why there shouldn't ever be a person who hears the sadly uplifting gospel bridge of "It's never over; my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder" and doesn't immediately think of one specific person. There shouldn't ever be someone who hears those words sung with that voice without remembering with a frightening freshness that feeling, that feeling that there was nothing in all your life you wouldn't have given for one more second of being a whole with that person, that feeling that nothing would ever be alright without them. It was everything, that feeling. It was the whole fucking world for however long you felt it. And Jeff Buckley felt it too.

It takes a special kind of person, I think, to write a song of such paradox with such confidence, but I say what is emotional pain but confident paradox? "Lover, You Should've Come Over" is the truest of all songs in that sense: it is every sad story. We all hear it as we are, sitting at home and feeling normal and good enough, watching the funeral of the outside world parade before our door, and its no coincidence at all that amidst these verses of calmness and acceptance and the signs of a life moving on, every chorus comes back a little stronger than the last, a little more insistent. It's the hardest, and most universal kind of sadness, this: we are happy enough most of the time and as many problems as we may throw up to the sky in the process, the only answer that feels right, and that keeps returning with more and more force: "oh, but I wish you'd come over." It is the tear that hangs inside our soul forever.

And yet Buckley holds out hope: "It's not too late" are his parting words, before the song calms down to its initial lull and fades away, as Jeff himself did not three years later. Because of his untimely departure, we will never know if he was right. Was this optimism his greatest strength or greatest tragedy? Would someone, some day have walked through his door and make it feel, to his hurt and yearning, that his lover had returned? Was the surety that it's never over virtue or vice? The pain is undeniable and universal, but the conclusion is entirely ours to draw, through ourselves and everything we know. That's the magic that Buckley had.

Oh Yeah

And I got my Driver's License like a week ago.

Little Known Wonders of the Musical World

Tonight a certain piece has been playing on my mind. Although secrecy and the ensuing sense of security are surely a part of the warm feeling it brings, I would like to share.

What is it? The song is Vale Deah by Trocadero.

Where is it? I first heard it during the end credits for the DVD release of the first season of hit machinema series Red vs. Blue, but it can also be found on the group's album, containing many songs used in and written for the series. The album is the one I'd recommend: it holds many a treasure, including the indie-rock/pop killer No One, another of my secret securities. Vale Deah is available on youtube also.

What's so good about it? Vale Deah is not a flashy show tune, nor a soaring epic, nor a crunching rock outburst. In fact it doesn't rip and tear at the seams with barely suppressed emotion of any kind. It is the aftermath of emotion - the denouement of pain. It's soft, slow, simple, unobtrusive even its closing moments, where it builds to a full room of sound but can't find any passion inside. It wants there to be passion; it's frustrated that there's not.

There is a certain point in a time of crises where the feeling so exquisitely created by Trocadero with this song becomes the be all and end all of existence, and its so transient that ne'er a songwriter has had time to catch it - too busy were they walking contemplatively on a beach, or (in Vale Deah's case) hanging plaintively in a bar somewhere. But here it is, for my money, never bettered: the universal Moment's Silence for heartache, head bowed, sadly numb.

Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na

I somehow knew you were there
Looking like you didn't care
I reached for the change in my pocket
I counted the change in my pocket


I wanted to buy you a beer
I knew that you were somewhere near
The bartender said it's ok
The bartender said it's ok...

Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na

I don't like life tonight

Because I don't feel a part of it, not one bit, not at all.
In fact I'll go ahead and state it: I am not a part of life, I am not a part of the world, I am not a part of people. There's something missing in me and I am not connected.

And no amount of words will ever fix it.

The Art of Buckley (remastered)

The following blog was stolen direct from my Myspace blog of the same name. I think it's much more at home here, though.

Sometimes you experience moments in life that are remarkable in their own context, and should only ever be remembered that way. You are about to fall asleep, cozy in your bed, and it begins to rain. The rain on your rooftop keeps you awake just long enough to let you consciously realize just how perfectly content you are right that second... then it lulls you to sleep. This is one example of the kind of moment I hope we've all had - if it's just me, then I finally have cause to feel sorry for all you suckers.

The late, great Mr. Jeff Buckley (God bless his soul) and his music exist wholly in these moments, as I discovered on the tram this morning. My magic music machine chanced upon the devastatingly sexy Everybody Here Wants You, a take from the tragically unfinished Sketches for "My Sweetheart The Drunk" with which Jeff was for some reason unhappy, and although I had heard the song dozens of times before, something about this time was very different. The second that beat kicked off, it was obvious. I was just now, in this moment, hearing what Jeff never felt he could create - the imperfectly perfect rendering of the passion of his soul.

In light of this, it becomes obvious what is magical about Buckley. What from most people comes from training and practice, thoughts and feelings and impulses and putting pen to paper and fingers to frets comes from somewhere else in this particular man. Those things all help him along the way, but what he makes, his art, is spilling from a place untouched by anything human or conscious or tangible. I think this is probably why he suffered from mental illness, alcoholism and died so heartbreakingly young - because something about his construct as a being didn't care for his welfare or life, only for his art. Buckley didn't make music; music made him.

I focus on him because he most recently and fervently took my breath and faith away, but he has not been the only of his kind. Beethoven, Coltrane, Hendrix have all shared very similar traits, ones which I might call spiritual if I believed in such things. Even Mayer, whose brilliance I couldn't overemphasize short of committing suicide out of an inability to coexist alongside it, simply doesn't have what Buckley had. He's built his brilliance, where Buckley had to build himself to express it.

Has anyone ever wondered why Buckley's lover never came over? I often do, when being around such a man must surely have been remarkable, if only on an appreciative level. I'm selfishly glad she didn't; without her absence, the world wouldn't have Buckley's masterpiece to bathe in. But she couldn't have known this, so what's more likely is she knew she was dealing with something that was more than a person, or even a genius, or even a messenger... and she was just too afraid within herself to brave the eternal and touch the face of God.

11.27 PM, May 15. 2007

Anthem of the Woe Begotten

Something I wrote which I believe will be accompanied by music of a spiffy sort.

I've known the beast of the first day of Autumn
I've seen the sea of opportunities missed
I've heard the anthem of the woe begotten,
it goes, "Nobody knows pain like this."

I don't mind misery altogether that much. What I don't care for is when it rocks up uninvited, without calling ahead and with no valid reason for its visit. Just because you're the evil underlord of all the emotions doesn't mean you don't have to fill out a form and wait in line like everybody else. Happiness I'll slip through the Employers Only entrance, but that's only because I like the kid so much.

Yes, this was a vague and impenetrable whine blog.