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.
Wants You
Jeff Buckley Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me.
Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile,
Coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me.
I'm only here for this moment.
I know everybody here wants you.
I know everybody here thinks he needs you.
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away.
Such a thing of wonder in this crowd,
I'm a stranger in this town, you're free with me.
And our eyes locked in downcast love, I sit here proud,
Even now you're undressed in your dreams with me.
I'm only here for this moment.
I know everybody here wants you.
I know everybody here thinks he needs you.
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away.
I know the tears we cried have dried on yesterday
The sea of fools has parted for us
There's nothing in our way, my love
Don't you see, don't you see?
You're just the torch to put the flame
To all our guilt and shame,
And I'll rise like an ember in your name.
You know I, you know I,
I know everybody here wants you.
I know everybody here thinks he needs you.
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
Let me show that love can rise, rise just like
Embers.
Love can taste like the win of the ages, babe.
And I know they all look so good from a distance,
But I tell you I'm the one.
I know everybody here thinks he needs you,
Thinks he needs you
And I'll be waiting right here just to show you.
In Jeff Buckley's song "Everybody Here Wants You," the lyrics describe a passionate love between two people who are undeniably drawn to one another but are also acutely aware of the pressure from the outside world. The song starts by painting a vivid picture of the woman who is the subject of the love: "Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile, / Coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me." This description is followed by the admission that the singer is "only here for this moment" and is well-aware of the fact that "everybody here thinks he needs you."
Despite this pressure from others, the singer is steadfast in his love and in his desire to prove to the woman that their love can conquer all: "I'll be waiting right here just to show you / How our love will blow it all away." The song then takes a slight turn as the singer addresses the woman directly, telling her that she is "just the torch to put the flame / To all our guilt and shame" and declaring that he will "rise like an ember in your name." The song ends with the repetition of the idea that the singer is the one for the woman, as he promises to wait for her to see the truth of their love: "And I know they all look so good from a distance, / But I tell you I'm the one."
One interesting fact about the song is that it was released posthumously, as Buckley passed away before he could complete his second album. Despite this, "Everybody Here Wants You" received critical acclaim upon its release in 1998, with many praising the song's lush instrumentation and Buckley's incredible vocal range. Additionally, the song was reportedly written about Elizabeth Fraser of the band Cocteau Twins, who Buckley had met while touring with them.
Another interesting fact is that Buckley's style of music was often described as being part of the "New Folk Movement," which blended elements of folk music with more modern sounds and themes. In the case of "Everybody Here Wants You," the song incorporates elements of jazz and blues into its sound, giving it a unique and timeless quality.
The chords for "Everybody Here Wants You" are as follows: G, Bm, Em, D, A.
Overall, "Everybody Here Wants You" is a powerful and evocative song that captures the intensity of love and the trials that come with it. From the vivid descriptions of the woman to the promises of undying love, the song is a true masterpiece of Buckley's catalog.
Line by Line Meaning
Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile,
Your kiss has 29 individual pearls of joy embedded in it, creating a singing smile.
Coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me.
Your scent of coffee and lilac blend and ignite a flame within me.
I'm only here for this moment.
I am fully present in this moment, without any distractions or obligations.
I know everybody here wants you.
It is evident that everyone in this room desires your attention, your touch, your love.
I know everybody here thinks he needs you.
Each person here believes that they require your affection and cannot imagine existing without it.
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
I will remain here, longing to demonstrate to you the power of our connection.
How our love will blow it all away.
Our love can extinguish all barriers, doubts, and negativities with its force.
Such a thing of wonder in this crowd,
You are a wondrous being that stands out in this crowd of conventional people.
I'm a stranger in this town, you're free with me.
I am an outsider in this place, but you are comfortable around me and not bound by social norms.
And our eyes locked in downcast love, I sit here proud,
As we exchange a glance filled with affection, I sit with a sense of pride in love.
Even now you're undressed in your dreams with me.
Even in your subconscious, you imagine being intimate and vulnerable with me.
I know the tears we cried have dried on yesterday
The sorrows we shared previously have turned to dust and been left in the past.
The sea of fools has parted for us
The masses of ignorant and foolish people have separated, acknowledging our connection and giving us space.
There's nothing in our way, my love
There are no obstacles or barriers between us and our love.
Don't you see, don't you see?
Can't you perceive the depth and strength of our bond?
You're just the torch to put the flame
You ignite the fire of passion and love within me.
To all our guilt and shame,
Our love burns away any guilt or shame we may carry, illuminating our intimacy.
And I'll rise like an ember in your name.
I will soar to new heights with your love and support, like an ember carried by the wind.
Love can taste like the win of the ages, babe.
Our love is a sensation of triumph and victory that has lasted for centuries.
And I know they all look so good from a distance,
Other people may seem alluring from afar, but they do not compare to the depth of our connection.
But I tell you I'm the one.
I know I am the one who can truly fulfill your heart's desires.
Thinks he needs you
Believes that he cannot exist or be happy without your affection.
Let me show that love can rise, rise just like Embers.
I need the chance to prove that love blooms and flourishes, just like embers can ignite a raging fire.
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Jeffery Scott Buckley
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@C.o.m.m.u.n.i.c.a.t.o.r
29 pearls in your kiss
A singing smile
Coffee smell and lilac skin
Your flame in me
29 pearls in your kiss
A singing smile
Coffee smell and lilac skin
Your flame in me
I'm only here for this moment
I know everybody here wants you
I know everybody here thinks he needs you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away
Hmm, such a thing of wonder in this crowd
I'm a stranger in this town
You're free with me
And our eyes locked in downcast love
I sit here proud
Even now, you're undressed in your dreams with me
Oh, I'm only here for this moment
I know everybody here wants you
I know everybody here thinks he needs you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away
I know the tears we cried
Have dried on yesterday
The sea of fools has parted for us
There's nothing in our way, my love
Don't you see, don't you see?
You're just the torch to put the flame to all our guilt and shame
And I'll rise like an ember in your name
I know I, I know I
I know everybody here wants you
And I know everybody here thinks he needs you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
Oh, let me show you (I'll be waiting right here just to show you)
That love can rise, rise just like embers
Love can taste like the wine of the ages, oh babe
And I know they all look so good from a distance
But I tell you I'm the one
I know everybody here, well, thinks he needs you
Thinks he needs you
And I'll be waiting right here just to show you
@legorahma
don't mind me im just posting the lyrics so i can sing along:
Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile
Coffee smell, and lilac skin, your flame in me
Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile
Coffee smell, and lilac skin, your flame in me
I'm only here for this moment
I know everybody here wants you
I know everybody here thinks they need you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away
Such a thing of wonder in this crowd
I'm a stranger in this town, you're free with me
And our eyes are locked in downcast love
I sit here proud
Even now you're undressed in your dreams with me
I'm only here for this moment
I know everybody here wants you
I know everybody here thinks he needs you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
How our love will blow it all away
And all the tears we cried have dried on yesterday
A sea of fools have parted for us, there's nothing in our way, my love
Don't you see? Don't you see?
You're just the torch to put the flame to all our guilt and shame
And I'll rise like an ember in your name
No. No
I know everybody here wants you
I know everybody here thinks they need you
I'll be waiting right here just to show you
Oh let me show you that love can rise just like embers
Love can taste like the wine of the age, oh babe
And I know they all look so good from a distance
But I tell you I'm the one
I know everybody here well thinks he needs you, thinks he need you
And I'll be waiting right by here just to show you
@katherinaJee55
"I'm still not comfortable with what I do. Every time I get home after a show, I feel really strange - like when you wake up in the morning and you realize that you went out the night before, got high, and told some stranger all the most intimate details of your life. It's kind of embarrassing." - Jeff Buckley ♥
@Nickee_Sonicjinn
+katherinaJee55 I was introduced to Jeff Buckley's music in 1996 and he died the next year. I was so totally devastated that I wouldn't be able to see him in concerts after that. It would have been really great if he had chosen to be getting old as we do but then again, this world is too incensitive for the musicians like Jeff...
@dragirtully2524
+MzSonicjinn he didnt kill himself though. he didnt choose to get sucked under a boat.
@Nickee_Sonicjinn
+Dragir Tully I know of course. Did I say Jeff killed himself? That is the last thing I wanted him to have encountered in his life.
But what else can we do? We can just listen to his beautiful music and mourn.
@katherinaJee55
Do not forget that the time will come ,when God will bring the majority of the dead...including Jeff ..The Bible says: “There is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Acts 24:15) .Now the question arises...are we alive at that time ? But I am very happy ,I know that Jeff will be a new opportunity,that makes me being happy...he say in end of one video..." just to be in the world, really."..jB ♥
@oldschoolm8
Wow, Jeff said that?! I feel like that every weekend, and when I occasionally perform.....
@embry0nic
Jeff, everybody here wants you.
@gruelah007
Alive
@jeffdoesgames2112
Cheers
@dirac1425
I'm a male, and yes