Under These Waves Tonight

The other day, I finished watching Greetings from Tim Buckley and it reignited my love for Jeff Buckley. In my opinion, Penn Badgley did an incredible job of imitating, but not massacring, Jeff's voice as I would have expected him to do, and his characteristics were exactly how I had always imagined Jeff's to be. However, the movie was definitely not as good as I would have liked it to be. I was excited for it for so long and to be honest, it let me down a little bit. But how could I pass up the chance to watch a film about one of my favourite ever musicians? 

So, let me back-track a little bit. When I first listened to Jeff Buckley, years ago, I was enamoured, absolutely in love. I researched a lot and read a lot about him and one of the first things I discovered was that he died, drowning in Wolf River, on my first birthday. I think that on the day that I found out, I nearly cried. Just knowing that I may have spent that exact second that he was dying enjoying my first birthday, in the absolute ecstasy that a birthday is to you when you are young, broke my heart. It still breaks my heart. Every birthday I make sure to listen to a few songs, if not the full albums and a cut-out from a magazine calendar sits on my wall of the date with his name and a little coffin drawn on it. 

For so long, I felt like because of this we had an affinity, a connection by fate. I felt like this coincidence, minute as it was, joined us together. I remember once, as an idiotic fourteen-year-old, saying to my friend, "Hey, imagine if when he died, his soul passed on to me... if I was Jeff reincarnated." Then I realised that I was already born when he died so that was dumb of me. Can we just ignore the idiocy of my younger self please? Okay let's. Now, I just see his music as absolutely stunning. I listen to his voice and I sometimes feel tears welling up in my eyes, hearing that haunting falsetto and stunning guitar work. I can't really explain it, but I just find his music so touching, so torturously beautiful. His music made me fall in love with him.

So here are my top three Jeff Buckley songs, for your listening pleasure:

Vancouver

From the album: Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1999)

This song is Buckley's voice at its most versatile, meandering elegantly from the deep, almost hoarse vocals of the verse to the mellow high notes of the chorus. And the broken chords of the riff have this magical way of actually turning knots in my stomach. Simply amazing.

Nightmares By The Sea

From the album: Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1999)

There is really something special about this song. One time I listened to this for a full six hours in a Frankfurt hotel reception, but I wanted to listen to it forever. The guitar riff is absolutely haunting, in the most beautiful of ways. The idea of "coral graves" and the line "stay with me under these waves, tonight" is strange; it all seems so scarily prophetic. 

Lover, You Should've Come Over

From the album: Grace (1994)

This one is a new love of mine. It has slowly grown on me over the past few months. My favourite lyric from this is, "I feel too young to hold on, and I'm much too old to break free and run" because that is probably the place that I'm at right now with most everything. Honestly though, his lyrics are poetry and this song is heart-achingly beautiful. 

Although Jeff is dead, I do believe that he is one of those artists whose spirit truly lives on through their music. In Grace, he sings, "drink a bit of wine, we both might go tomorrow". He knew it, and I believe he lived his life as if he might, at any moment, suddenly be gone. If there is one thing we can all learn from him, it is to live as if tonight is our last night and to do what makes us truly happy, never afraid to die...