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Jeff Buckley: The Lost Interview

An interview said to have been done in August, 1994 (though I believe it's actually January prior to that Wetlands show on the 12, not the August one on the 16, due to the fact he'd already chosen a cover photo for the album well before that point: on February 23) at the Columbia/Sony offices by Tony Gervino via tidal.com, July 21, 2021.

How does it feel to have to do interviews?

Well, at the outset I guess I figured why would anybody care? But I’m smart enough to know that people would want to talk about my music. I just didn’t think anyone would for a publication. But at this point the fatigue hasn’t set in, and no question is a stupid one.

It’s still early.

[laughs] Mainly it’s helpful because I’m getting some ideas out about exactly what I think about some things. And the important thing in doing interviews is not to have any pat answers. That would make it unenjoyable for me. Like a … a murder suspect or something, in terms of having your story straight.

Have you finished mixing the new album?

No, I have one last day in the studio — one last gasp of creative breath before I have to go away. I’m totally pissed. Absolutely.

Did you write in the studio, or did you go in with the songs ready?

One of them was completely organized in the studio. But that was still prepared beforehand. A lot of stuff we’d done at the last minute because I was trying to get the right people to play with, and it took a while before I found them. 

But that was only three weeks before I’d gone up to Woodstock to record and we hadn’t known each other that long, and the band material hadn’t developed as much. Some things were completely crystallized, and some things needed care, and they got it. I’m still not satisfied.

Let’s see: I get to go into the studio on Wednesday, the day before I leave and the night after I perform at [defunct NYC club] Wetlands. So I have one, two, three, four, five precious days to [work on the music], along with all the other stuff I have to do. I have to shoot some pictures, possibly for the album cover. Then at night I’m free to get these ideas together, and I’ll still have one last shot on two songs in particular. The producer [Andy Wallace] doesn’t even know what I want to do to this one song. [laughs] He’ll be horrified.

Have you played it out?

Uh-huh. There are just things I want to crystallize about it.

Is figuring songs out onstage a conscious effort on your part to fly or fail?

Yeah, because I love flying so much. But, really, it’s still a kind of discipline. I guess it’s an engagement. It’s not like having “song 1 to song 6 and then a talk.” I don’t know anybody who really does that. I know a lot of performers talk about not being so structured. … Sometimes you can see bands that have a set of songs, and that shit is dead. That … shit … is … dead.

When I perform, I’m working off rhythms that are happening all over the place, real or imagined, and it’s interactive. It’s got a lot of detail to it, so I can’t afford to tie it up in a noose, and put it in a costume that doesn’t belong on me. So yeah, it’s free but it has its own logic, and sometimes it completely falls flat on its face. But it’s worth the fall, sometimes. Because that’s life.

To me it makes sense to do things in that manner, because that’s really just the way life is when you step out of it and see that, like, your car has a flat and somebody smashed in your windshield and then, shit, you’re walking home and all of a sudden you run into somebody that turns out to be your favorite person for the rest of your life. It’s always … unfolding. You just have to recognize it, I guess. And that’s my philosophy, that I haven’t really thought about until you asked me.

Have you been a solo performer out of desire or necessity?

Both. I did it to earn money to pay rent in the place I was staying, and bills, and my horrible CD habit, and failing miserably all the time, always playing for tips and always just getting by — by the skin of my teeth.

To get this sound in order, you can have a path laid out in front of you, but if you don’t have the vehicle to go down the road you’ll never get to where you want to go. So I guess I was building the parts piece by piece or going through different forms, reforming them and trying out different ideas and songs.

How long have you been building these parts?  

Some of them I wrote when I was 18 or 19, and some of them I wrote weeks ago, and some of them I’m still writing. [laughs] The rest of this album is kind of a purging, because the rest of the albums ain’t gonna happen like this. [points to chest] You’ll never see this person again.

Who and what are you going to become, Jeff? 

I don’t know, just something deeper. Nothing alien, just something deeper. I’m just not satisfied. I’m really, horribly unsatisfied. Cause I kind of got an idea of where I want this thing to go. It’s still gonna be songs. I think about deepening the work that I do, and other problems I try to solve, like, “If I go to see this band in a loft, or if I went to see this band in a theater, and I wanted to be very, very, very enchanted and very engaged and maybe even physically engaged to where I’m dancing or where I’m moshing, what would that sound like? If I wanted to be cradled like a baby or smashed around like a fucking Army sergeant, what would that sound like?” I daydream all the time about it. And that’s sort of what I work toward. It’s more of an intimate thing.

In America the rock band is not an intimate thing, but in America soul bands are very intimate and blues bands are very intimate, like way back in the day, when people who invented blues were doing it. It’s all very interdependent and it’s all very … people had to listen to make the music. And it comes around in a lot of different ways. Things I’m doing now are pretty old-fashioned: I’m going on tour to little places to play small cafés. [He lays his itinerary out in front of us.]

What do you expect the reaction to be? You play New York City and, by now, the people here know your deal, but there are some cities where they’re not going to know.

That’s OK.

Will you tailor your performance to different tour stops? Does it change the way you perform?

Every time I perform it’s different.  

How long have you been in New York City?

Three years. But I’ll always be here. I’ll always live here.

What is it about New York?

Everything. You know all the clichés: It’s the electricity, it’s the creativity, it’s the motion. It’s the availability of everything at any moment, which creates a complete, innate logic to the place. It’s like, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have this now. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have the best library in the country, and there’s no reason why the finest Qawwali singer in all of Pakistan shouldn’t come to my neighborhood and I’ll go see him, and there’s no reason that Bob Dylan shouldn’t show up at the Supper Club. 

There’s no reason that I can’t do this fucking amazing shit. And if you have a certain amount of self-esteem, it’s the perfect place because there’s so much. It’s majestic and it’s the cesspool of America. And there’s amazing poetry in everything. There are amazing poets everywhere, and some real horrible mediocrity, and an equal amount of pageantry. There’s also a community of people that have been left with nothing but their ability to put on a show, no matter what it is — whether it’s a novel or a performance reading on Monday night at St. Mark’s Church for 20 minutes.

Where do you do the bulk of your writing?

Everywhere. You know what? Mostly it’s in 24-hour diners, on too much coffee. That’s an old Los Angeles thing.

How much does the location affect the writing?

To me music is about time and place and the way that it affects you. There’s just something about it. There’s just some spirit that somebody conjures up and then it floats out at you and helps you or hinders you throughout your life. It’s either Handel’s Messiah or it’s “All Out of Love” by Air Supply.

Music is just fucking insane. It’s everything. Music is like this: It’s always seemed to me to be one of the direct descendants of the thing in the universe that’s making everything work. It’s like the direct child of … life, [of] what being “people” is all about. It’s incredibly human but it touches things that are around us anyway. [pauses, then quietly] It’s hard to explain.

Give it a shot.

It gets into your blood. It could be [the Ohio Express’] “Yummy Yummy Yummy” or whatever. It gets in. It’s not like paintings and it’s not like sculptures, although those are really amazing and powerful. But I identify with music most.

And is live music the next degree of intensity?  

Oh yeah, if they’re singing to me. You never hear it again, but you never forget it. I mean, you never forget it. It’s like the first time your mother cries in front of you. But I like making [music] and … I want the music to live live, even be written live, so it’s always forming, it’s ever unfolding. 

The king of improvisation is [the late Qawwali singer] Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — the most I’ve ever been filled with any performer’s energy. I have over $500 of his stuff. And I never got to see Keith Jarrett, but there was a time when he was my big hero for the same reason. Big, huge improvisation. Improvisation is something that I identify with.

Which of your new songs is your favorite? Is there one that you can’t wait to get to in your live set?

Not yet. I give each song pretty much the same attention, and I have the same reservations and the same carefulness about making sure I bring out its best. No favorites.

What’s a song by another artist that you wish you’d written, that completely devastates you?  

Most of Nina Simone’s songs completely devastate me, although she didn’t write [most of] them. A lot of things that Dylan did are so impressionistic, even though his originals are supposed to be folky. Like “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”: If I was a woman and he sang that to me, I’d be like, “Whatever you want, Bob. You want casual sex whenever you want it and still be with your wife? I don’t care.”

I’d like to write something like “Moanin’ for My Baby” by Howlin’ Wolf, and I’d also like to write something like [Gerry and the Pacemakers’] “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I have schoolgirl crushes on a lot of songs that never seem to go away. Lots of Cocteau Twins. That’s somebody I got to tell exactly what I thought of them.

Where were they playing?

In Los Angeles, a long time ago on the Heaven or Las Vegas tour. I’m immensely in love with their originality, their shyness. … But … um … the Smiths! [stands up abruptly, then sits back down] I wish I’d written half the fucking Smiths catalog. There are so many: “I Know It’s Over”; I wish I’d written “How Soon Is Now?” I wish I’d written “Holidays in the Sun” by the Sex Pistols. I could go on forever, and I know you don’t have forever.

Maybe sleep on it. I’m curious, do you sleep a lot?

No, I don’t.

Is your mind constantly racing? Are you always just … fast forward?

Have you ever seen those film montages when a guy’s going crazy, and it just gets faster and faster and…

Yeah, sure, that’s exactly what I mean.

It’s exactly like that. It’s like, I don’t want to miss a thing, and [I get the] feeling that I will miss something. But usually I’m wrong. [laughs] But when I do sleep, I sleep hard and have the best dreams.

Do you remember your dreams?

Sometimes, and they become the basis for a lot of my learning. That comes along with my development as a human being. Lately I’ve been having a lot of killer dreams — like a killer is coming after me or I have to confront a killer. And when a killer is coming after me, what am I going to have to do? To kill him.

Interesting. What do you think that means?

That something in me is going to be murdered. That a psychic killer is coming. Actually, I met him. Sometimes I meet people inside of me that don’t like me; sometimes I meet people inside of me that want to make love with me more than anything; sometimes I meet the most bizarre animals and am in the most bizarre situations. 

One dream, I met a serial killer who lived out in a small town in, like, Virginia. A small suburban town, very nice, white picket fence. And he lived in the town in a church with the pews taken out. And he was an artist.

You remember this much detail?

Just wait. He was a very short young man, probably about 28 years old with thinning black hair that I think he was ashamed of. He also had all of these photos of these people mangled beyond belief, carved up, dissected alive. They were still alive in these photos, and there was a wall of all of these seductively beautiful, textured, processed black-and-white photos. One man had been made into a basket. One man had been totally deboned but still kept alive, and his skin had been made into a basket upon which his head stood, looking straight into the camera. And right before he died, this snapshot was taken. And this is what this guy’s job was. And my task in the dream, I was the person that saw this amazing horror and this amazing pain. The photographs were screaming, and all of this madness, all of this waste at the hands of this person with a warped soul.

The irony of the dream was that his self-esteem was nothing, and he was saying, “This sucks. This is horrible. I don’t even want to show you.” I was so afraid of him and wanted to keep him in the same place long enough for the police to get him and take him away — while not being killed myself. Obviously. [laughs] So in order to be cool I had to ultimately be compassionate and point out the details in the picture where I felt there was brilliance and really good workmanship — all the while feeling that I would vomit any second, all the while so scared I thought I would cry. And that was the dream. 

Sometimes I have really rhapsodic dreams, and sometimes I have little bits of memory … but lately it’s been killer dreams, and the police almost don’t come in time, although they do come in time. And then I met a woman inside me that hates me. I met the girl, I met the person that doesn’t like me, and then I met this person who was so lascivious sexually that she masturbates publicly all of the time, like she’s fixing her hair. And she looks beautiful doing it and really great, but everyone’s around her and she’s practically naked.

I’m pretty transfixed by [dreams]. I link them to the way I perform. I don’t see any separation, because when you sing there’s a psychic journey that happens. 

Do you write a lot of poetry?  

I garner my songs from my poetry. If anything looks like it’s vibrating, yeah. But it’s a raw thing.

Was the Live at Sin-é EP, released in November of ’93, supposed to hold people over until the album comes out?

No, it served that purpose, but no, it’s just because I love that place.

How often have you played there?

I’ve played there a lot. I played there for over a year. At first I couldn’t get a slot. Shane [Doyle], the owner, had too many demos to listen to. I gave him a demo and a review, which is something I never ever, ever fucking do: pay credence to any one journalist’s opinion. But this was a good review. [laughs] Some positive, some negative. Mainly the negative stuff was my fault.

So I thought that maybe I could get a gig at this little place because I wanted to play in little places to establish my sound and do the work and learn how to sing the way I wanted to sing. Because I didn’t have any teachers. There were teachers around Sin-é to teach what I needed to learn, but Shane couldn’t be bothered. 

Then somebody crapped out on a bunch of Monday nights and my friend Daniel Harnett got me in. He said, “I’m doing one, and so you can do one too.” I was like, “Wow, thank you.” As it turned out, that was it. Bang! I really worked my ass off to get that gig and get others and to make money.

How did you hook up with Columbia Records?

They came to me. I didn’t intend for them to. I was just making music.

Were they the only label that came to you?

Nope. I met Clive Davis. Shook his hand. I met Seymour Stein. Seymour’s at Sire; Clive is at Arista. A lot of people were interested. I met somebody from RCA. Peter Koepke at London.

Were they in the audience at your shows? Then they’d come up to you afterward?

Yeah, and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like Clive showing up in a limousine on the Lower East Side, in a fine suit. Poor guy — it was so hot in that fucking room.

This was Sin-é, right?

Yep, you were there — like a fucking furnace. In the middle of the fucking summer. I had my shirt off; the guy’s still in his work clothes ’cause his life is fully air-conditioned.

Did you have any misgivings about signing?

Of course I did. Being brought up around the music business in Los Angeles, you see the turnover of people being signed and dropped day after day after day, and it’s all written off as a tax loss. To the company, it’s no sweat off their nose.

But here in New York it’s more about the work, and you don’t get anywhere without the work and that’s what I was doing. But I had misgivings about the size of the places. I had misgivings about my deservedness, about how good I was. I had misgivings about who they thought I was and what they thought I was. And how I wasn’t what they thought. At all.

Which is? Don’t record companies think that every male solo performer with a guitar is the New Dylan?

No, they thought I was the second coming of Tim Buckley. [quietly] That’s what I thought they thought.

Is that a recurring worry of yours?

It was that as a child. But now I’m totally immersed in what I do. If someone asks a question about it, I just tell them as much truth about things as I know. I had no misgivings once I saw my first and only liaison to Columbia Records, [former head of A&R] Steve Berkowitz. He was there from a pretty early stage, just listening. Which is what he does. Because he loves music. And he’s smart. And he’s smart enough to work this fucking gig at Columbia and to do a good job. The personnel here [at Columbia] are what really changed my worries, but I’m really worried up until, like, now.

How would you describe your sound?

I can’t explain it because I’m actually confused. It’s not really a tremendous literary feat to describe it. It’s just an amalgam of everything I’ve ever loved and everything that’s ever inspired me. I’m using that now.

How do the Columbia folks describe you?

They don’t know. At a recent convention I played in Boca Raton for A&R folks at like 11 in the morning, the guy that introduced me said, “We really don’t know what this is. We don’t know what kind of record he’s gonna make. We just know he has to make it.”

… a.k.a. “Introducing the boy genius…”

I’m not a boy genius. I’m neither one, actually. But I’m aware that these people have to move units. I’m aware that this company, by inertia alone, has an agenda. That it can function without me, and I can function without it. But there’s a certain thing that I can’t have without it, and that’s making little plastic discs and traveling the world and being a musician, and they seem to want me. A lot. And I feel that where I’m going is worthwhile, that maybe when I get there this all will have been … whatever crappy shit I’ve ever done will be redeemed.

Do you think you’ll ever get there?

Sure. Or you’ll find me swinging from somebody’s dressing room [laughs] with a big blue arm holding a Jam tape.

Je n'en connais pas le fin footage

A gorgeous recently unearthed video for the Piaf song...what a blessing to receive this gift! ❤️🙏🏼✨

Solo Jeff Live at Sin-e New Year's Eve '94

Submitted by Shelly Happart

From Carol E. Mariconda

Date : Wed, 4 Jan 1995 11:38:28 -0500 (EST)

[Note: Jeff had told me at Maxwell's that he was going to play a secret, unpublicized show at Sin-é on New Year's Eve. So I basically kept it to myself, since the folks at Sin-é were afraid it would turn into a mob scene if word got out. Well, it certainly became crowded enough anyway. Sorry... I hope I am forgiven for keeping mum, but I will make up for it in intricate detail...Pretend you have a hot mulled cider, and pull up a chair...Here goes...]

Jeff at Sin-é on New Year's Eve '94

  There were some people at a few of the small tables when Richard, Stephen, my brother Paul, his fiancée Veronica, and I got to the *TINY* Sin-é at 7:00 PM. We took the table by the window and door, ordered food and talked. It was really low-key. At a point we asked the pretty waitress about "JB", to confirm he had'nt cancelled out-still on for the night, great ! The bass player came up to the window, peered in to check what was going on, and split. Stephen looked happily out the window at the passers-by, and walked around the room unimpeded as people smiled at the sight of him.

  When the first woman singer went on at 9:00 PM, people started pilling in from virtually nowhere, blocking our view and door. The comedian Stephen Wright was there. We surmised thet he and the singer were an "item"; he left later when she did, before Jeff arrived, obviously unaware or disinterested in seeing Jeff perform-their loss. Anyway, my little Stephen was starting to feel claustrophobic, trying to crawl through people's feet, and crying in frustration, so we took him outside into the wet drizzle, and decided that Richard would have to take him home; I felt that I *had* to stay after all this, but I felt guilty and disappointed; when I got home much later, they had had a nice time together listening to a long piece of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen-a favorite of my husband's (Richard himself plays what he terms "intuitive electrosonic music for synthecizer" for our listening pleasure at home)-on the radio, and all was forgiven.

  So as the car pulled away, I was rounding the block, and saw Jeff and his guitar across his shoulder, hunched over, dressed in black, and hurrying into a bar called Anseo, which is few doors away from Sin-é.

  I went back into Sin-é, and wondered if I should get next door and talk to him, but decided not to bother him there. The second woman singer teasingly asked us if we all knew who was going to perform later, a few people including myself mumbled knowing yes's, and then she flat out told us all: Jeff Buckley! I really couldn't tell how many of them knew in advance. We recognized a number of people from the Maxwell's gig. She said she was honored to perform before him; I am sure she wanted to bear his babies or something. But he was still not there yet.

  Towards the end of her set, Jeff came in enveloped in his furry black coat, pushed through the crowd unnoticed, and hung out behind the bar, not seeming to talk much from what I could see. I couldn't tell if he saw me as I looked over at him several times to see what he was doing. Then I pushed through past the tiny bar with my head down, to go to the bathroom, and when I came out, lo and behold, he was sitting right there on the tiny little stove outside the bathroom door. He looked at me and I looked at him. He bugged his eyes out in a comedic way, and outstreching his arm, pointed, and said a mock-surprised "Youuuuuu !!!!" as I, with a good sense of comedic timing, did the same thing back at him; it was very funny. He said "Hello again, Carolynn", and I said "Hi"; he introduced me to the guy next to him. Then I stood there for about 5 confused seconds to see if that was all, turned, and walked away back to my table. He was just about to go on.

  The three of us decided to vacate and abandoned our secure table, in favor of being swept along into rough tide in the middle of that TINY crowded room, ending up much closer, right behind the front middle table; there were many poeple looking in the windows from the damp city street outside-not a prime listening position, but a good visual vantage point nevertheless.

  Jeff moved to the right side of the tall, worn, metal Sin-é sign on the wall, standing against it wearing a lime-green long-sleeved shirt with only the top button done, spread apart by his guitar to show a white thermal shirt underneath, his trademark baggy pants, and chunky shoes. His black hair was unkempt, longish, and parted in the middle, with one side tucked behind one of his pierced ears. As he jammed to a song playing on Sin-é's tape to warm up, the crowd continued to talk loudly. After he played his first song, which was "So Real", he asked what time it was when he was reminded about the special Midnight about to take place-3 minutes to, and counting. This is when he mentioned that he was confused earlier that day, because he thought that the St. Mark's poetry reading was to be New Year's Eve, not New Year's Day! So he decided to preview the poem he had written called "You My Love"-a very interesting, funny creation, with a few little alluded to bits of our conversation on stage at Maxwell's, in between songs, as if those wisps of thought were fresh on his mind. That gave me insight into how he usually ad libs in between songs-obviously a combination of things he has just been contemplating beforehand, and thoughts that just pop into his head in the moment when he is performing. He has a very quick wit. Anyhow, it was a very good poem, and went over quite well. As he read it, casting each line aside much too quickly, I immediately felt the urge to examine it carefully, and savor it on paper, at the same time as a wish that I could remember it all to post for our group. Lines that stuck out in my mind :

You my love are allowed to kill and smash your television to tiny bits...[something like that and a long run-on sentence here elaborating on that thought, that I really wish I could remember. It was the longest, and best line of the poem.]

You my love are allowed to forgive your television.

You my love are allowed to take my guitar and play me...[some off-key song...I am not sure of this.] You my love are allowed to suck at any endeavor

  Speaking of sucking, there was a very loud, obnoxious male heckler, who seemed to be part of a group of people who were just talking and talking. We figured that some girls who liked Jeff brought their jealous, rowdy boyfriends along. This one particular fellow was yelling things like "Yo Jeff! The Buckster! Do it! Rock!" etc. Jeff broke into Nirvana's teen spirit and imitated the sound of a gun going off. Everyone laughed but he was obviously annoyed, and I was too. As the guy persisted, Jeff said something about a "night of non sequiturs," maybe in the hopes of politely shutting him up. The clock struck Midnight, and he sang "Auld Lang Sin-é" in a low register, climbing to a humorous falcetto at the end. Always the quirky, contrary one, Jeff mentioned that his New Year's Eve resolution was to start smoking. He reminded us all to remember to write 1995 on our rent checks.Then he charged into a song, by the late Fred "Sonic" Smith (Patty Smith's recently deceased husband) of the MC5's, called "Kick out the jams", after dedicating it to his memory. It was a fast, aggressive song, and he sang it with a lot of angry teeth-baring. When he finished that heckler said "GO Jeff! Rock!" or something in a mocking way, as the crowd cheered loudly. That's when Jeff said something to the effect "If this is all that is going to happen after a year of doing what I've done..." One of the girls said to that creep that they had to go, because he was being rude and disruptive, and the whole group left. YAY! So it got quieter, but people were still *talking*...because of New Year's and liquor? Jeff suddenly leaned up against the wall, and quietly meandered into "Young lovers do".  It was the first time I heard him perform this song live and I was thrilled. It felt like he intended it as a way of testing to see if the audience would quiet. He did his "NYC bed bouncing on a hard wood floor..." etc improv thing, that he interjects into different jams at different concerts, in the middle of it. By the end of this more subdued version than on "Live at Sin-é", he had quieted the room considerably.

  From this point on-with the exception of one hilarious funny break in the rest of the set's mood, when a group pf people outside were celebrating loudly, and he made a funny comment, grabbed a helium balloon, inhaled, and broke into a cross between a Tweetie Bird meets Alvin Chipmunk version of that second Green Day single " Basket Case"-the whole atmosphere of the set got progressively sadder. Moving closer and closer to the front, at one point I was sitting on the floor, looking up at him, until finally I ended up *directly* in front of him about 3 feet away, sitting in a chair that someone was leaving offered me on the way out; I could not believe several people were actually leaving right in front of him-as if they had something better to do?

  Jeff mentioned a few times something about "sucking" in a disgusting way, but he said that at the Maxwell's too. But I thought he was wonderful, and I was paying *extremely* close attention. He is too overly self-critical. I really cannot reconstruct the set list, because there were many songs with which I was not familiar, which I was quite *pleased* about, since I have always wanted to experience him the way he has been described in the old Sin-é days-solo, and singing incandescent performances of classic songs. Just being there, I really felt privileged to be seeing him solo and singing all these songs I had never heard before. Those renditions were so touchingly soft, delicate, and beautiful-just amazing and intimate to me. All these shows will be treasured memories for me when he lifts off, and cannot be touched again. But I couldn't help but wonder what it was like for him to be standing there on New Year's Eve, up there all alone after all this time, and experiences of this whole past year. Was the crowd comprised of the "old crowd", or were they mainly new people who guessed, or found out that he would be there? Was the "vibe" different for him? How did he feel about the Holiday Season? The end of the tour? Did he miss his mother? How did all this affect the way he felt each passing song as he internalized, and then exhaled it? All these thoughts blended together as I watched, listened, and felt the intensity of his presence and the music. I recall that he played the following, in no particular order. I know that I am leaving out a number of songs, but I didn't write anything down; when I started to worry about how I would "report about the concert", my brother advised me to "Just enjoy the show", which I really knew I should do. Besides, that was obviously Jeff's sentiment too, as voiced earlier when he pleaded with someone trying to take a picture of him that he should *please* put that thing away, and let it just be him and us and the night. Here are the songs that I remember, in no particular order, except toward the end :

Bob Dylan's "If you see her, say hello."

A beautiful, new song, which I can't wait to hear again, that might be titled "Flowers bend toward the sun" - just lovely !

That Judy Garland song, that we were debating about on the list, called "The man that got away".

"A song for all women in the audience" [about a man that is pined for for, but never returns]

"A song for the men in the audience - all three of you." [or a song for all three sexes, not to leave anybody in the room out. I forget the "message" of the song.]

A song that he had "not performed in a *very* long time."

"Lover, you should've come over." [One of my favorites !]

I was sitting directly in front of him for :

"Mojo Pin"

"Grace"

"Hallelujah"

  As the show progressed, he drew increasingly inward, closing his eyes for most of the songs. Instead of connected with the people in the room, his gaze cast down to the guitar fretboard and strings, and then lowering still to pass along the floor, his lips slightly parted and gravitating downward as well. Gone was his usual mischievously funny comedic ad libbing, and smilingly animated radiant face that routinely break through after the end of each time-suspending, transcendent soul-letting that propels forth from his being with an emotional intensity that at many times is just too awesome to behold; those funny emotional disclaimers after each soul-baring had disappeared. He had become withdrawn, quiet, and seemed not to be able to look uo at us any longer. Those beautiful songs just seemed even sadder and more intense. With his neck stretching, and head tilted back and up, his impossibly open and expressive face alternated between agitated contortion, and relaxed simple stillness lulled by one of his own long, suspended, hovering notes. The inner corners of his long, thick, dark eyebrows arched upward as far as they could physically travel, with his lips stretched taut around wide bare, sharp, teeth spitting forward invisible, loud, spikey attacks of sound, alternating with lips curving gently and quivering around invisible, escaping shapes of soft, intricate, delicate, whisps of barely audible sound-these extremes enveloping a seemingly endless wealth of all the continuous, fleeting, intricate facial gestures and utterances in between. The songs became lullabies, most of which he sang with his eyes shut tight, feeling each, one after the other. He could no longer look up-sad and withdrawn, standing there all alone, shoulders hunched, and leaning up against the wall.

  By the time he sang his last "Hallelujah"-the most moving version I have experienced-I was staring off into space, and on the verge of tears.

  He ended at about 1:30 with no encore, because another band was supposed to go on after him. People came up to him, he has very quickly packed up his guitar. He did not seem chatty. I could not move. Then I pondered whether to approach him. But the way in which people were stopping quickly to say things like "nice show", etc reinforced my feeling that anything I would have said would have been inappropriate and invasive. This is one thing that I have trouble understanding: why people do not just look at his face and see what mood he is in, before just almost "attacking" him with niceties, when all one has to do is look at him to realize how he feels, and really see that, as was the case that night, it was not at all what he wanted or needed. I could not even move; imagine how *he* felt *doing* that ?

  We left and hung outside for a few minutes, and he quickly emerged, looked around at a few people obviously waiting for him, and seemed not to want to engage in talk with them. He just basically waved a quick goodbye, and hurried up the street into the darkness of the night, and the dawning New Year.