58. 10 Songs inspired by a Buckley

I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain - Tim Buckley
Eternal Flame - Joan as Policewoman
Just Like Anyone - Aimee Mann
Grace - King Creosote
You Were Right - Badly Drawn Boy
Memphis Skyline - Rufus Wainwright
Try Not to Think About It - Juliana Hatfield
Memphis - PJ Harvey
Dream Letter - Tim Buckley
Dream Brother - Jeff Buckley

And you could add to that all those average songs since then by British indie bands with high-voiced singers. JJ72? Funnily enough, I have nothing against Coldplay, but when they came out, before I'd heard them, I'd seen them being compared to Jeff Buckley, so was interested. When I first heard Shiver on the radio, I thought I'd just heard the new Shed Seven single. Chris Martin's not a terrible singer, but he's not Jeff Buckley. Buckley was also, I gather, an influence on Thom Yorke's singing of Fake Plastic Trees, which is a Radiohead song I rather like.
Anyway, I suppose everyone's a bit over the Buckleys now, aren't they? They had their time at the turn of the century, when there was a lot of Tim Buckley in the press. I even went to a Tim Buckley tribute concert at the RFH where various middle-ranking British stars paid their respects and did a version of one of his songs.
There was also a tribute album a few years pack, the best of which is, I think, King Creosote's version of Grace (above) which he really reshapes and makes suitable for the human (not superhuman) voice. Grace is my favourite Jeff Buckley song. Even now, it's incredible to listen to, it's his most stunning vocal tour de force, and just such a well-crafted song.
It took a while to realise that I don't particularly like Tim Buckley. His voice and his lyrics are often rather hammy. There are some pretty ones, mind, but i bet Jeff Buckley's version of I Never Asked To Be your Mountain which he sang in New York in the early 90s was the best one ever.
I do, after all, remain a big Jeff Buckley fan. I think Grace is a classic album and I think the next one would have been class too. Strangely, besides Hallelujah, my early favourite Jeff Buckley songs (I, like most people, became a fan after death, though i remember reading about him when he was promoting Grace) were The Sky is a Landfill and Morning Theft on the sketches album.
The story is eerie, i guess, and has been played up that way, with a joint biography drawing parallels between father and son, and the songs they wrote for each other decades apart.
Anyway, i thought it would be naff for me to write about Jeff Buckley (though i suspect there are one or two such atrocities in my past) so i tried to be more vague and just start with the line "sketches of your sweetheart" and go from there. I think, sometimes, though, I find it hard not to stick to a script which I don't want to stick to. This isn't about Jeff Buckley but i wish i could have gone further off-topic.

"I'm not drowning, I'm waving" I heard you say too often -
drawing too much attention to the clown behind the tears

It's always been too easy to push your own enigma
with weak impersonations of furies, wolves and queens

I can't say I remember I ever heard you howling though
I've learnt it turned from party piece to perceived cri-de-coeur

You won't make me feel guilty - I don't care about history
I'll live with all the hatemail, 'cause i know what I saw

Though I may remain baffled by endless loves engendered
I can applaud your effort to play the part intended

sitting in a strip club lunchtime after lunchtime
and all you could produce were sketches of your sweetheart

This is my fitting tribute - not war cry or confession,
nor trilling imitation of adolescent excesses

If all those tears are genuine there's something I am missing
so I'll keep my snakes well hidden and toast unlived potential.