He had emerged in New York City's avant-garde club scene in the 1990s as one of the most remarkable musical artists of his generation, acclaimed by audiences, critics, and fellow musicians alike. His first commercial recording, the four-song EP Live At Sin-é, was released in December 1993 on Columbia Records. The EP captured Buckley, accompanying himself on electric guitar, in a tiny coffeehouse in New York's East Village, the neighbourhood he'd made his home.
Buckley made his public singing début at a tribute concert for his father called "Greetings from Tim Buckley". The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on 26 April 1991.
By the time of the EP's release during the fall of 1993, Buckley had already entered the studio with Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drummer), and producer Andy Wallace and recorded seven original songs (including "Grace" and "Last Goodbye") and three covers (among them Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", Benjamin Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol") that comprised his debut album Grace. Guitarist Michael Tighe became a permanent member of Jeff Buckley's ensemble and went on to co-write and perform on Grace's "So Real" just prior to the release of the album.
In early 1994, not long after Live At Sin-é appeared in stores, Jeff Buckley toured clubs, lounges, and coffeehouses in North America as a solo artist from January 15th to March 5th as well as in Europe from March 11th to 22th. Following extensive rehearsals in April to May of 1994, Buckley's "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" found him on the road with his band from June 2nd to August 16th. His full-length full-band album, Grace, was released in the United States on August 23rd, 1994, the same day Buckley and band kicked off a European tour in Dublin, Ireland; the 1994 European Tour ran through September 22nd, with Buckley and band performing at the CMJ convention at New York's Supper Club on September 24. The group headed back into America's clublands for a Fall Tour lasting from October 19th until December 18th.
On New Year's Eve 1994-95, Buckley returned to Sin-é to perform a solo set; on New Year's Day, he read an original poem at the annual St. Mark's Church Marathon Poetry Reading. Two weeks later, he and his band were back in Europe for gigs in Dublin, Bristol, and London before launching an extensive tour of Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom which lasted from January 29th to March 5th. On April 13th 1995, it was announced that Jeff Buckley's Grace had earned him France's prestigious "Gran Prix International Du Disque -- Academie Charles CROS -- 1995"; an award given by a jury of producers, journalists, the president of France Culture, and music industry professionals, it had previously been given to Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, among other musical luminaries. France also awarded Buckley a gold record certification for Grace.
From March 5th through April 20th, Buckley and his band rehearsed for an American spring tour with gigs running from April 22th until June 2nd. From June through August, Jeff and company toured the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland. The band took off for Down Under to play six Australian shows between August 28th and September 6th, 1995. In November 1995, Buckley played two unannounced solo shows at Sin-é. He performed songs including the new "Woke Up In A Strange Place" on Vin Scelsa's "Idiot's Delight" show on WXRK-FM on December 17 and celebrated New Year's Eve 1995-96 with performances at New York's Mercury Lounge and Sin-é.
Jeff Buckley and his touring ensemble went back to Australia, where Grace had earned a gold record certification, for the "Hard Luck Tour," which ran from February 9th to March 1st of 1996. Drummer Matt Johnson left the group after the final Australian show. The posthumous album Mystery White Boy brings together some of the high points from Jeff's 1995-1996 live performances. The DVD/home video release Live In Chicago documents, in its entirety, Jeff's concert at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13th, 1995.
In May of '96, Jeff played four gigs as a bass player with Mind Science of the Mind, a side-project of Buckley's friend, Nathan Larson of Shudder To Think. In September Buckley played another unannounced solo gig at his old favorite haunt Sin-é. December of 1996 found Jeff Buckley embarking on his "phantom solo tour"; designed to experiment with new songs in a live setting (as in his Sin-é days), these unannounced solo gigs throughout the Northeast U.S. were played under a succession of aliases: the Crackrobats, Possessed By Elves, Father Demo, Smackrobiotic, the Halfspeeds, Crit Club, Topless America, Martha & the Nicotines, and A Puppet Show Named Julio.
At midnight on February 9th, 1997, Jeff Buckley debuted his new drummer, Parker Kindred, in a show at Arlene Grocery on New York's Lower East Side. He also played a couple of solo gigs in New York during the first months of 1997: a gig at the Daydream Cafe (featuring band members Mick Grondahl and Michael Tighe as "special guests") and a solo performance February 4th as part of the Knitting Factory's 10-Year Birthday Party.
Buckley and his band had recorded intermittently — with Tom Verlaine as producer — during Summer/Fall 1996 and early winter 1997 in New York and in February 1997 in Memphis. After the conclusion of those sessions, Jeff sent the band back to New York while, during March and April 1997, he remained in Memphis and continued to craft his work-in-progress, making various four-track home recordings of songs to present to his bandmates. Some of these were revisions of the songs recorded with Verlaine, some were brand new compositions, and some were surprising cover versions. The new lineup debuted Buckley's new songs at Barrister's in Memphis on February 12th and 13th. Beginning March 31st, Jeff began a series of regularly scheduled Monday night solo performances at Barrister's. His last show there was on Monday, May 26th, 1997.
Buckley passed away in a drowning accident in the Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, on May 29th, 1997. The night Buckley died, he was on his way to meet his band to begin three weeks of rehearsals for My Sweetheart, the Drunk; producer Andy Wallace, who'd helmed the boards on Grace, was to join them in Memphis in late June to record his new album.
In addition to his Columbia Records releases, Live At Sin-é and Grace, Jeff Buckley has appeared as a guest artist on several other recordings. He can be heard singing "Jolly Street," a track on the Jazz Passengers 1994 album In Love. He contributed tenor vocals to "Taipan" and "D. Popylepis," two recordings on John Zorn's Cobra Live At The Knitting Factory (1995). On Rebecca Moore's Admiral Charcoal's Song, Buckley plays electric six-string bass on "If You Please Me," "Outdoor Elevator," and "Needle Men" (on which he also plays drums). He both plays guitar and sings backup vocals on Brenda Kahn's "Faith Salons," a key track on her Destination Anywhere album (released 1996). Patti Smith's critically acclaimed Gone Again album features Buckley adding "voice" to the song "Beneath the Southern Cross" and "essrage" (a small fretless Indian stringed instrument) to "Fireflies." On Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness, a various artists' spoken word tribute to beat poet Jack Kerouac, Jeff Buckley performed on "Angel Mine"; Jeff plays guitar, sitar, and mouth sax (adding words at the poem's conclusion) on the track. Buckley can be heard reading Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulallume - A Ballad," on Closed on Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (disc 2: The Devil's Brew) (Poems & Tales by Edgar Allan Poe) on Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records. He sang "I Want Someone Badly" (Epic) for Shudder To Think's soundtrack to First Love, Last Rites. Sandy Bell, a friend of Buckley's during his L.A. days, released the resurrected track "Hollywould" in 2000, which she co-wrote and recorded with Buckley.
An ardent enthusiast for a myriad of musical forms, Jeff Buckley was an early champion among young American musicians for the work of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the world's foremost Qawwali (the music of the Sufis) singer. Buckley conducted an extensive interview with Nusrat in Interview magazine (January 1996) and wrote the liner notes Nusrat's The Supreme Collection album, released on Mercator/Caroline records in August 1997. On May 9th, 2000, Columbia Records released Mystery White Boy, an album of live performances, and Live In Chicago, a full-length concert (available on DVD or VHS) recorded live at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13, 1995, in the middle of Jeff's "Mystery White Boy" tour.
Following the release of Grace on August 23rd, 1994, Jeff and his group spent much of 1994-1996 performing around the world on the Unknown, Mystery White Boy, and Hard Luck tours. Mystery White Boy brings together, for the first time, some of the high points of those shows. Produced by Michael Tighe (guitarist for Jeff's band throughout their international touring and the recording of Grace) and Mary Guibert (Jeff's mother) and Mystery White Boy provides an evocative cross-section of Jeff's repertoire: previously-unreleased Buckley compositions, electrifying live interpretations of songs from Grace, and obscure and marvelous cover choices. The recordings heard on Mystery White Boy have been hand-picked from scores of concert tapes by Mary Guibert and the members of Jeff's band who played such a large role in helping Jeff realize his musical vision.
According to Mary, the tracks on Mystery White Boy are "the individual performances that represented transcendent moments from each of the concerts we'd identified as being in the 'overall outstanding' category."
"It was obvious which performances were contenders for the record," concurs Michael Tighe, "and in some cases a performance would be so supreme and unpredictable that I knew it had to be brought to the public."
The posthumous album Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk was released in 1998 and included songs Buckley was working on while in Memphis for his upcoming release.
Tribute songs:
PJ Harvey - Memphis
Rufus Wainwright- Memphis Skyline
Mark Eitzel - To the Sea
Zita Swoon - Song for a Dead Singer
Amy Correia - Blind River Boy
Duncan Sheik - A Body Goes Down
Chris Cornell - Wave Goodbye
Katatonia - Nightmares by the Sea
Willie Nile - On the Road to Calvary
Rachael Sage - Grace
Aimee Mann - Just Like Anyone
Cocteau Twins - Rilkean Heart
Jim Major - Angels Fall (Song for Jeff Buckley)
A film about Buckley's life, a biopic called "Mystery White Boy", is currently in pre-production. Actors have not yet been cast, according to IMDB.
Sky Is a Landfill
Jeff Buckley Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Joining hands in silence
Watch the evil black the sky
The storm has ripped the shelter
Of illusion from our brow
This power is no mystery to us now.
The cancer you won't remove
We cast our funeral rose inside
And bury the need to prove
Our mutilation is to gain from the system
Ooh, turn your head away
From the screen, oh people
It will tell you nothing more
Don't suck the milk of flaccid bill k.
Public's empty promise
To the people that the public can ignore
This way of life is so devised
To snuff out the mind that moves
Moving with grace the men despise
And women have learned to lose
Throw off your shame or be
A slave to the system
I see you take another drag
One more lost soul to raise your flag
The sky is a landfill
I see you take another drag
Let's see you take another drag
You like to dance to the rolling
Head of the adulteress
You sing in praise of suicide
We know you're useless
Like cops at the scene of the crime
With your steroids and your feedbag
And your stable and your trainer
I got a mail bomb for you mister strong arm.
Throw out the stones from all the cemetery homes
For the violence of a nation gone by
Or the politics of weakness
And the garbage dump of souls
That will now black the sky
Their yellow haze and crowds of eyes
Will plug up the mind that moves
Moving with grace the men despise
And women have learned to lose
We'll share our bodies
In disdain for the system
Oh, I see you take another drag
One nation bends to kiss the hag
The sky is a landfill
I see you take another drag
I see you take another drag
I have no fear of this machine
Jeff Buckley's song Sky Is a Landfill is a powerful commentary on the destructive nature of modern society, technology, media and politics. The song begins with the image of people circling around the park, joining hands in silence and watching the evil blacken the sky. It is an open protest against the increasing pollution and the loss of natural beauty due to human actions. The storm that has ripped the shelter of illusion from their brow refers to the awakening of consciousness about the true nature of power and corruption that exists in the world.
The lyrics then turn to the cancer of the spirit and the need to bury the need to prove oneself to the system. Buckley highlights the futility of trying to gain recognition from a corrupted and power-hungry society. He urges people to turn away from the screens that only offer empty promises and to throw off societal shame or be a slave to the system. He mocks the blind admiration of people who dance to the rolling head of the adulteress and sing in praise of suicide.
The chorus repeats the image of taking another drag, representing the addictive and destructive nature of people's actions. The final verse is a call to action to throw out the stones from all the cemetery homes for the violence of a nation gone by and to share their bodies in disdain for the system. The song ends with the powerful line "I have no fear of this machine" – a testament to Buckley's resolute determination to stand up to the destructive forces of modern society.
Line by Line Meaning
Circle around the park
Gather around in a circular pattern in the park
Joining hands in silence
Hold each other's hands while staying quiet
Watch the evil black the sky
Observe darkness taking over the sky and everything around
The storm has ripped the shelter
The storm destroyed a protective covering
Of illusion from our brow
The illusion that was covering our true vision is now gone
This power is no mystery to us now.
We now understand the power causing destruction
Leave your spirit genocide
Stop killing your inner spirit
The cancer you won't remove
The negative thing you refuse to get rid of
We cast our funeral rose inside
We symbolically bury our past and uncertainties
And bury the need to prove
Put to rest the desire to prove oneself
Our mutilation is to gain from the system
We've been sacrificing our true selves to achieve something from the system
Ooh, turn your head away
A request to look away in disgust
From the screen, oh people
Stop staring at the screen, dear people
It will tell you nothing more
The screen will not give you any more information
Don't suck the milk of flaccid bill k.
Don't consume something worthless and unnecessary
Public's empty promise
A promise given to the public that is worth nothing
To the people that the public can ignore
The public is ignored by those who promised to serve them
This way of life is so devised
This lifestyle is cleverly designed
To snuff out the mind that moves
To kill the creativity and thinking ability of people
Moving with grace the men despise
Men dislike those who move with elegance
And women have learned to lose
Women have been conditioned to feel inferior
Throw off your shame or be
Get rid of your embarrassment or face the consequences
A slave to the system
Become a slave to the system if you don't change
I see you take another drag
I observe you take another puff of smoke
One more lost soul to raise your flag
One more person you've influenced towards your useless cause
The sky is a landfill
The sky is turning into a garbage dump
Let's see you take another drag
Come on, take one more puff
You like to dance to the rolling
You enjoy watching the downfall of others
Head of the adulteress
The mistress's head that rolls
You sing in praise of suicide
Your songs promote self-harm
We know you're useless
We are aware of your uselessness
Like cops at the scene of the crime
Like police officers who arrive only when the damage is already done
With your steroids and your feedbag
With your unnatural means of becoming strong and your large appetite
And your stable and your trainer
And your personal stable for horses and trainer
I got a mail bomb for you mister strong arm.
A threatening message to the powerful person
Throw out the stones from all the cemetery homes
Remove everything that reminds us of death
For the violence of a nation gone by
For the war and brutality that has occurred in the past
Or the politics of weakness
Or the questionable political moves made due to the inability to stand up and take action
And the garbage dump of souls
And the place where all the souls of the suppressed people are stored
That will now black the sky
The souls will now turn the sky black
Their yellow haze and crowds of eyes
The distorted view and judgment of a large number of people
Will plug up the mind that moves
Will stifle the thinking ability of those who are capable of thinking
Moving with grace the men despise
Men dislike people who have the ability to move gracefully
And women have learned to lose
Women are conditioned to believe that they are inferior
We'll share our bodies
We'll share our physical existence
In disdain for the system
We'll do this while having a strong dislike for the system
One nation bends to kiss the hag
The entire country pays homage to something or someone old and ugly
I have no fear of this machine
I am not afraid of this technology
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: MICHAEL TIGHE, JEFF BUCKLEY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@frankieconcepcion9011
He was just coming into his Prime. Sweetheart was a full evolution. Lyrically, Guitar phrasing, composition, even vocally. The Music World would be so different right now if Jeff Buckley had a full career. He could have been the greatest songwriter in modern history.
@scrufduf
this makes me tear up a bit to think about.
@nonpolygon
agreed, biggest music loss in the last 30 years imo
@deterministicchaos3096
Unfortunately, some people wanted him gone.
@deterministicchaos3096
@77th Brigade Official dude he was killed in a boating "accident"
@davidbattaglene6873
@PSYCHEDELICS ANONYMOUSwhat do u mean,he died tradgically in a river
@nickhartman6372
Absolutely incredible lyrics. Jeff Buckley was ahead of his time for sure. Just imagine a song like this being released today....the lyrics seem tailor made to describe the state of our society.
@adonaiyah2196
It would be great if it was released today
@nickhartman6372
@adonai yah it's great no matter which way you slice it. I'm just pointing out that his lyrics perfectly describe our society and if he said it today people would call him a white supremacist conspiracy theorist. That's how far we've devolved since 1995.
@hamc9477
@@nickhartman6372hey Nick, what are you getting at here?