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.
Strawberry Street
Jeff Buckley Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Like counterfeit stars
Watch them come
Watch them come
The pacified hate's full-speed away
A company in the arms of a decorative grave
No tears, no fears - you'll always remain here
The power out there seems to keep you in
The flesh is weak and the dream is within
And in the plastic room
Seven little honey girls sitting in a row
Pratise for the imperial pillow
Like sweet little strawberries eaten from a bowl
Bite, lipstick red
In a candy store sold
And in the bed I stared - do you hear destiny?
Girl, animal scream
Nightmarey shade, strawberry tile
Drinking for hours alone
Kill memory, watch it die
Pornographic, dead, f**king ripped and bloody
Shredded steaming mess
Kill the memories, watch them die
Lullaby, your mother's once son
Yours is the kind 's born to die young
And on the boulevard, seven little honey girls
Sitting in a row
Manicled to the imperial pillow
And if I came up there to Strawberry Street
It said that I held the key
Would you do as I told you?
Would you give it up to me, automatically?
Strawberry, strawberry....what you gonna do for me?
Jeff Buckley's song "Strawberry Street" is a haunting and mysterious meditation on addiction, sexuality, and the destructive allure of dark impulses. The lyrics paint a vivid picture of a place where people are trapped in a cycle of self-destruction, driven by their own desires and a sense of powerlessness. The scene is set with the first lines, describing the flickering of streetlights that seems to mimic the stars. In this world, people are drawn to the fake allure of fame and fortune, embodied by the "decorative grave" that holds a company in its embrace. There is a sense of detachment and dissociation in these characters, who are unable to feel emotions but are driven by a sense of adrenaline-fueled urgency. The lyrics are full of disturbing imagery, including references to sexual exploitation, drug use, and violence, but there is also a sense of poetic beauty and pain that draws the listener in.
As the song progresses, the imagery becomes more surreal and dreamlike. The second verse depicts a surreal scene of seven girls dressed in provocative outfits, practicing for some unknown performance on an "imperial pillow." There is a sense of seductive danger in this scene, as if they are being held captive by unseen forces. The tone of the song becomes more menacing with each verse, as the lyrics describe a world where memories are destroyed and people are consumed by their own dark impulses. The final verse presents an enigmatic scenario where the singer holds the key to something important on Strawberry Street. There is a sense of power and control here, but also an underlying sadness as the singer realizes that even with this feeling of control, he is still trapped in this cycle of addiction and self-destruction.
Overall, "Strawberry Street" is a haunting and powerful song that captures the darkness and beauty of human desire. Its lyrics are rich with symbolism and metaphor, and the music is a perfect match for the mood of the song.
Line by Line Meaning
Streetlights flicker on, as they take on the sun
The streetlights resemble stars but they are just imitations. They come on as the sun goes down.
Watch them come
This line is repeated to emphasize the arrival of something or someone.
The pacified hate's full-speed away
The anger that was held has gone away suddenly and completely.
A company in the arms of a decorative grave
People find comfort in things that are related to death or that remind them of death.
No tears, no fears - you'll always remain here
There is no need to worry or to cry because you will always be here.
The power out there seems to keep you in
The external factors and the pressure from outside can influence your actions and decisions.
Lost your blood to adrenaline
You have sacrificed your wellbeing or even your life for the sake of doing something thrilling or energetic.
The flesh is weak and the dream is within
Your physical body is vulnerable and fragile but your imagination and ambitions are limitless and powerful.
And in the plastic room
This line sets the scene for the following description of a certain place.
Seven little honey girls sitting in a row
There are seven attractive and sweet young women sitting next to each other.
Pratise for the imperial pillow
The young women are preparing or rehearsing something, perhaps related to seduction or romance.
Like sweet little strawberries eaten from a bowl
The young women are sugary and delightful, like strawberries.
Bite, lipstick red
The young women are wearing a shade of lipstick that resembles the color of strawberries.
In a candy store sold
The young women are like products that are being sold, perhaps because of their looks or attractiveness.
And in the bed I stared - do you hear destiny?
The singer is in bed and contemplating if there is fate or predestination.
Girl, animal scream
The girl screams loudly and fiercely, like an animal.
Nightmarey shade, strawberry tile
The color or appearance of something is ominous or disturbing, like a nightmare. The tile or surface is red like strawberries perhaps.
Drinking for hours alone
The singer is drinking by himself for hours.
Kill memory, watch it die
The singer wants to forget or erase his memory and observes it being destroyed.
Pornographic, dead, f**king ripped and bloody
The scene or event being described is extremely violent, sexual, and gruesome.
Shredded steaming mess
The aftermath of something violent and messy.
Lullaby, your mother's once son
A soothing song that is meant for the artist who is someone's child.
Yours is the kind 's born to die young
The kind of person the singer is referring to is likely to have a short and tragic life.
And on the boulevard, seven little honey girls
There are more young women similar to the ones mentioned before on the boulevard.
Manicled to the imperial pillow
The young women are tied or trapped to something symbolic of authority or power.
And if I came up there to Strawberry Street
The singer is considering going to a place called Strawberry Street.
It said that I held the key
The singer has a key or a solution to something related to Strawberry Street.
Would you do as I told you?
The artist is questioning if others would follow his commands or suggestions.
Would you give it up to me, automatically?
The artist is asking if others would give him control or power without any resistance or hesitation.
Strawberry, strawberry....what you gonna do for me?
The chorus of the song repeats this line to ask what strawberries, which might be a metaphor for something else, can do for the singer.
Contributed by Ethan J. Suggest a correction in the comments below.