Tribute Songs To Jeff (Lyrics)

Jeff Buckley fascinated and inspired many other artists with his works. In fact, almost as many songs about him have been released as songs by him. There's also a wealth of material - music, writing, art - which people all over the world have been inspired or encouraged to create after discovering his work. Some were his friends or lovers; some simply admired him; some were fans who felt that somehow he had shown them how to become artists themselves. Perhaps, in the end, this will turn out to be one of the greatest aspects of his legacy.


P J Harvey

P J Harvey was a friend of Jeff's, and her song Memphis is a passionate letter of farewell. Recorded at the sessions for the Mercury prizewinning album, Stories from the City, Stories From the Sea, it ended up on the Good Fortune EP. It alludes to the lyrics of his own Morning Theft and offers an artist silenced by death the power of her own living voice. "You breathing into my mouth...I'll take it, I'll take it from you..."

Mark Eitzel

Like many of the songs written after his death by Jeff's friends and peers, Mark Eitzel's To the Sea from his album The Invisible Man burns with loss and agonised regret. " You thought I was busy," he mourns,"but I was just busy running... running from your beauty".

Aimee Mann

Aimee Mann's Just Like Anyone on the album Bachelor No 2 is a beautifully simple, elegant slice of memory about a chance encounter she had with Jeff when she was sure "something was wrong...just nothing you could put your finger on." Like Chris Cornell, she laments her inability to change the past.

Duncan Sheik

In A Body Goes Down from his album Humming, singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik calls for this Orphic death to be lamented on a mythical scale. "Notify your holy men, console your sons and daughters."

Heather Nova

Heather Nova's tender lyric for Valley of Sound on her album Siren contains some lovely images of Jeff in performance. "I love the look in your trespassed eyes..."

Amy Correia

Some artists are shy about the origins of their songs. Amy Correia only latterly admitted the country lament Blind River Boy was about Jeff, though she first saw him perform way back in the days of Sin-e.... however, the lyrics make it pretty obvious. It's on her album

Chris Cornell and his former wife Susan Silver were both friendly with Jeff. Chris was partly responsible for choosing the tracks for Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. The Audioslave and Soundgarden singer's solo album Euphoria Morning is suffused with Jeff's influence, but Wave Goodbye is his simple farewell to a friend he can't forget. "Every hurtful thing you ever said is ringing in your ears when you miss somebody..."

Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins had a profound artistic and personal relationship with Jeff, and they recorded duets which have yet to come to light. Her own songs for him, Rilkean Heart and Half-Gifts from the album Milk and Kisses, read like a graceful thanks for strength and inspiration - and a gentle elegy for a relationship that may have proved too much for both of them."It's an old game, my love..."

Brenda Kahn

One-time girlfriend Brenda Kahn recorded a duet with Jeff, Faith Salons. After his death, her album Hunger included the dark and grieving Sidestep The Bullet which berates him for leaving without saying goodbye. "You set fire to the break of day - in a flood of light you slip away."

Courtney Love

Jeff Buckley's only real brush with the gutter press came after his one-night stand with Kurt Cobain's widow Courtney Love was snapped by paparazzi. Whatever her feelings for Jeff, she did dedicate Hole's song Boys on the Radio to him...among others. "The boys on the radio, they crash and burn, they fold and fade so slow in your endless summer night.." It's on the album Celebrity Skin.

Ron Sexsmith

Canadian singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith's wistful In a Flash from his album Whereabouts is a simple lament for beauty lost... "there one moment and gone in a flash".

American singer/guitarist Jimmy Gnecco of the band Ours also knew and loved Jeff. The ghostly elegy As I Wander is on their debut album Distorted Lullabies. Other songs on that album also contain allusions to his life and death, and the as yet unreleased Saint Down the Hall is another profoundly-felt tribute.

Kashmir

Danish metal band Kashmir's big ballad Gorgeous from their album The Good Life is a totally unexpected, hugely emotional and utterly unselfconscious slice of complete adoration. "The reverb you left is never over, tolling for the only one who is not present - still so gorgeous, so enchanted, so forever." It ends with a sample of Jeff's sigh from the start of Hallelujah. He got through to all sorts.

Juliana Hatfield

Jeff opened for Juliana Hatfield live during the earlier stages of his career. After he drowned she wrote the lament Trying Not To Think About It<, for her EP Please Do Not Disturb. "Tell me that it's only a dream...that it's a nightmare.."

Amy Fairchild

Folk/rocker Amy Fairchild wrote a lyrical but strangely untitled song for Jeff... simply called Jeff Buckley Song. It's on her album Demographic.

Like Ours, The Prayerboat and Rufus Wainwright, English band Angelou recorded a Buckley-inspired version of Hallelujah Singer Holly Lerski also wrote Little Sister about Jeff, - it's on their album While You Were Sleeping.

 

Stef Kamil Karlens

Stef Kamil Karlens of Belgian band Zita Swoon wrote his Song for a Dead Singer for their albumI Paint Pictures on a Wedding Dress.

 

Ezio

Another English band, Ezio, made their Jeff tribute the title track of their album Higher. It's a bitter lament for a "wild demon...a fallen angel" who "took us higher than we'd ever been before."

Lucinda Williams described Willie Nile's 1999 Jeff Buckley tribute On the Road to Calvary as "the most beautiful song I've ever heard."

A young Jeff did a stint as guitar tech for Glenn Hansard of Dublin band The Frames. There are references to his death in the lovely 'Neath the Beeches from their album Dance the Devil.

As yet unrecorded, Irish folk singer Luka Bloom's Calling the Angels includes the line "Jeff Buckley's words ring loud and true".

 

Latterly, NYC band Soul Coughing supported Jeff on tour. They disbanded in 2000, but singer Mike Doughty is responsible for the chiming lament Grey Ghost. "Sleepy-eyed the man is wading out into the night, singing don�t fall through the stars� "

Avant-garde singer and actress Rebecca Moore was Jeff's lover during the early 90s, and the inspiration for much of Grace. Her album Home Wreckordings includes the wistful Live in Blue Sparks: "all kinds miss Jeff....I'm not afraid, I walk with my little horned kids". Stilletto'd Young Stars explores the pathos of love lost and the loneliness of art. "If the song was meant to be, it'll come again some day - like you."

Finally...violinist Joan Wasser was Jeff's lover for the last few years of his life. Her band Those Bastard Souls - which also featured Buckley's bandmate Michael Tighe and his friend Dave Shouse - recorded the rousing but regretful The Last Thing I Ever Wanted Was To Show Up And Blow Your Mind on their album Debt and Departure. It includes a musical quote from Hallelujah.

American poet Craig Arnold included a long and complex poem about his own love for Jeff Buckley and his music in his award-winning anthology, Shells. It's called Grace.

The voice has gone forever out of yourself, choked with heart stuck in the throat, Vienna choirboy gone banshee...