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.
forget
Jeff Buckley Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
All the noise has died away.
I walk the streets to stop my weeping,
'Cause she'll never change her ways.
Don't fool yourself,
She was heartache from the moment that you met her.
My heart feels so still
Oh I think I've forgotten her now.
Her love is a rose, pale and dying.
Dropping her petals in land unknown
All full of wine, the world before her,
Was sober with no place to go.
Don't fool yourself,
She was heartache from the moment that you met her.
My heart is frozen still
As I try to find the will to forget her, somehow.
She's somewhere out there now.
Well my tears falling down as I try to forget,
Her love was a joke from the day that we met.
All of the words, all of her men,
All of my pain when I think back to when.
Remember her hair as it shone in the sun,
The smell of the bed when I knew what she'd done.
Tell yourself over and over
You won't ever need her again.
But don't fool yourself,
She was heartache from the moment that you met her.
My heart is frozen still
As I try to find the will to forget her, somehow.
She's out there somewhere now.
Oh she was heartache from the day that I first met her.
My heart is frozen still
As I try to find the will to forget you, somehow.
'Cause I know you're somewhere out there right now.
In Jeff Buckley's song "Forget Her," the singer is lamenting over a lost love. He's walking through the streets while the town is asleep, trying to find solace in his solitude as he weeps. He knows that this woman, who has likely caused him a great deal of pain, will never change her ways. He can't fool himself into thinking that she was anything but heartache from the moment they met. He's trying to forget her, but his heart feels frozen and still, and he wonders if he ever will.
As the song continues, Buckley likens the woman's love to a dying rose, a beautiful thing that will eventually wilt away. He remembers all the words she said and all the men she had in her life, and he feels his own pain when he thinks back to their time together. Despite all this, he still can't forget her. He tells himself to move on, but he knows deep down that she'll always have a hold on him. The song ends with him acknowledging that she was heartache from the first day they met, and he can't escape the fact that she's somewhere out there in the world, even as he tries to forget her.
One interesting aspect of "Forget Her" is that it was almost left off of Jeff Buckley's album Grace. Buckley's label thought the song didn't fit with the rest of the album and tried to cut it, but Buckley fought to keep it on the final tracklist. Another notable thing about the song is that, while it was on an early version of the album that Buckley handed in, it was later replaced by "So Real" and relegated to a single release. Despite this, "Forget Her" has become a fan favorite and is considered one of Buckley's best songs.
Line by Line Meaning
While this town is busy sleeping,
In the night, when everyone else is asleep,
All the noise has died away.
The city has become silent,
I walk the streets to stop my weeping,
In an attempt to stop crying, I wander the streets,
'Cause she'll never change her ways.
Because I know she will never change her behavior.
Don't fool yourself,
Do not deceive yourself,
She was heartache from the moment that you met her.
She was the source of your pain from the very beginning.
My heart feels so still
My emotions are numbed,
As I try to find the will to forget her, somehow.
While attempting to find the strength to move on and forget her,
Oh I think I've forgotten her now.
I may have finally succeeded in forgetting her.
Her love is a rose, pale and dying.
Her affection towards me is fading away,
Dropping her petals in land unknown
Fading away without a trace,
All full of wine, the world before her,
Bright-eyed and blissful with her future in front of her,
Was sober with no place to go.
Now sober and without direction.
Well my tears falling down as I try to forget,
As I attempt to forget her, tears stream down my face.
Her love was a joke from the day that we met.
Our relationship was never serious from the start.
All of the words, all of her men,
Thinking about all the things she said and all the other men she's been with,
All of my pain when I think back to when.
It causes me emotional pain to remember the past.
Remember her hair as it shone in the sun,
Thinking back to her hair glistening in the sunlight,
The smell of the bed when I knew what she'd done.
Recalling the scent of the bed after she had been unfaithful.
Tell yourself over and over
Repeatedly remind yourself,
You won't ever need her again.
That you will never require her presence again.
Oh she was heartache from the day that I first met her.
From the moment I met her, she was a source of emotional pain.
My heart is frozen still
I'm still emotionally numb,
As I try to find the will to forget you, somehow.
As I attempt to gather the strength to forget about you,
'Cause I know you're somewhere out there right now.
Because I know you're somewhere out there at the moment.
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: JEFF BUCKLEY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@MrAvocado575
@@Retrosenescent
Jeff Buckley is neither "underrated" nor "SO underappreciated it's a crime"
Grace won APPRECIATION from a host of revered musicians and artists, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin.[27] Jimmy Page considered Grace close to being his "favorite album of the decade".
Others who had influenced Buckley's music lauded him:[31] Bob Dylan named Buckley "one of the great songwriters of this decade",[29] and David Bowie considered Grace to be the best album ever made, and had said it would be one of his ten "Desert Island Records."
Listed below are the best albums of 1994 as calculated from their overall rankings in over 50,000 greatest album charts.
Best Albums of 1994
1. Grace by Jeff Buckley
2. Illmatic by Nas
3. Weezer (The Blue Album) by Weezer
4. Dummy by Portishead
5. Definitely Maybe by Oasis
6. The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails
7. MTV Unplugged In New York by Nirvana (US)
8. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement
9. Superunknown by Soundgarden
10. Parklife by Blur
Top-ranked artists of the 1990s
The top-ranked artists of the 1990s that appear most prominently in over 50,000 greatest album charts on BestEverAlbumsdotcom are listed below:
13. Jeff Buckley (the highest rated male solo artist of the 1990s and in the top 1% of all artists)
@itziarobrien5596
Forget Her
Jeff Buckley
While this town is busy sleeping
All the noise has died away
I walk the streets to stop my weeping
Cause she'll never change her ways
Don't fool yourself, she was heartache from the moment that you met her
Ah, my heart feels so still as I try to find the will to forget her, somehow
Oh, I think I've forgotten her now
Her love is a rose, pale and dying
Dropping her petals in land unknown
All full of wine, the world before her, was sober with no place to go
Don't fool yourself, she was heartache from the moment that you met her
My heart is frozen still as I try to find the will to forget her, somehow
She's somewhere out there now
Well my tears falling down as I try to forget
Her love was a joke from the day that we met
All of the words, all of her men
All of my pain when I think back to when
Remember her hair as it shone in the sun
The smell of the bed when I knew what she'd done
Tell yourself over and over you won't ever need
Her again
But don't fool yourself
She was heartache from the moment that you met her
Oh, my heart is frozen still as I try to find the will to forget her, somehow
She's out there somewhere now
Oh She was heartache from the day that I first met her
My heart is frozen still as I try to find the will to forget you, somehow
Cause I know you're somewhere out there right now
@drkside76
This is literally one of the most perfect songs I've ever heard...
@KishBish
it really is..
@lindyt3942
I know right! How can it sound so beautiful and also capture the feeling of heartbreak so perfectly?
@davidbattaglene6873
Oh I love it too as I'm listening to it right now
@beantown_billy2405
All about mood setting, building tension, big release, but also restraint. There's a little bit of Roy Orbison in him.
@tinalovell7989
Personally I think "Lover You Should Have Come Over" is the most perfect song but this comes close.
@FreePalestine7
Can’t stop listening to this beauty...2024 anyone??
@kelleyflint8207
When I first heard this, I played it a million times!!! Still playing it in 2020z Lover, you should’ve come over is another one I listened to over and over, my god it is soooo good!!
@GatoWales
Will never stop listening. My favourite album ever. He touches my soul
@kelleyflint8207
Gareth Owen It’s such a powerful song. All of his music is. I can’t get enough of him.