Beat, August 30, 1995
By Lauren Zorich
Contributed by Sai
Jeff Buckley seems to be torn between a feeling of paranoia that he has to prove something, being as he is the son of the increasingly deified late Sixties, early Seventies astral-folk singer, Tim Buckley, (whom Jeff never knew and only briefly met, once, at the age of eight, before Buckley Snr. died of a heroin overdose), and wanting to loudly say ‘Fuck You!' to his detractors. On the telephone from his New York apartment, I mention that he sounds relaxed. "Yeah, well, why shouldn't I be?" he fires back in his low, half-whispery, softly musical voice. "Should I be tense? ...gotta grow up sometime..." he mutters, "...no use making it too stupid, it just backfires..." Lauren Zoric listened as Jeff Buckley revealed his undeniable charm and gave glimpses of his hauntingly soulful self.
Jeff Buckley is intent on eradicating "complications in the head". You get the idea that Jeff would prefer not to think so much as he does, but instead be an all-feeling sponge, soaking up emotions and expressing them in songs. This is all to do with Grace. The song with that name, he says, is a death prayer, "or just somebody not afraid of death, because, I don't know, there's something transformational about having somebody else love you, it sort of gives you faith in yourself." This isn't a finished thought, a complete idea, but Jeff is like that. He feels it, he knows things, but he can't exactly verbalise what he means. That’s why he sings and plays music, that's how he tries to get himself across. Grace, the title he has given to his first record is “mostly just a quality about people that I enjoy."
How does he recognize it?
“Ah… sort of... a transcendental soul in somebody's behaviour. Like a soul that's wise… Like somebody who doesn’t stoop to violence so quickly in the face of a problem, because they’re a little bit more potent of a soul. It’s rare,” he stresses.
Has he discovered many people with this quality?
"No!... that are purely like that? Everybody has it at one time or another, it's just like sadness, sometimes people have it, sometimes they don't, but it's something that I love, or, it's something that I need, desperately, because so much shit in your life can be so caustic, it's deadly, and you need to be steady in the way that you live, in order to have your thoughts together. Because basically, it's just fucking survival," he says, making one of his frequent cognitive leaps that leaves me half-baffled. "There's nothing else to it, so you have to be self sufficiently aware. And that's something you lose from time to time, but you have to get it back, otherwise you don't live very well. I think there's a graciousness about people, I especially like it in men, because it's totally rare."
Jeff Buckley has grace. This is a better description of him than 'ethereal', because although he definitely has space cadet tendencies, he is also grounded. The man rocks for one thing, but combining his rock tenacity with the unearthly quality of his vocals, which slip from powerful, visceral cries to flying falsetto highs in nanoseconds, he is both accessible yet removed. He is physically there, but where his head is at is unknowable.
"I think I was taught at an early age that the thing about having to be in control all the time is bullshit! Most boys are taught that in order to be a man you have to be in control of everything. Of EVERYTHING. But they're always totally conflicted their whole lives because the feminine blood in them, the feminine light in them, sees that there's tons of things that you can't control, that you must flow with, just let yourself go..."
But you never really are in control of things, I suggest, you only ever think you are.
"I think you can be in control of your emotions... you can be in control of acting upon your emotions, that's what it is. I don't want to be in control of my emotions, but I can be in control of acting upon my emotions, in anger, or in lust, or in ignorance. That's a control, that's awesome. You can save yourself TONS of life bullshit! 'I shouldn't have slept with that person!' How many times have you thought that to yourself?! I shouldn't! What am I doing here?" he laughs.
Ah, the dawning truth!
"Yeah, all kinds of things, illusions, delusions and fantasies, reality. Accuracy. When you talk to people you want to be accurate about what you mean. And you can be like that in the music you make as well, which is why, maybe I just... precisely the things I've been criticised for, not having three chord rock that is three minutes… and I just don't feel like that."
You’ve been criticised for that?
“Yeah, yeah, oh, a long time ago, long time ago, before I even knew who I was," he says cryptically. "I've been criticised for being too emotional or being too ethereal, or too eclectic. I’ve been accused of being pretentious, I've been accused of being fake, I've been accused..." he sums up in general. "Actually, somebody at a bar watching a hockey game said they were ashamed that their children would live to see me on television!?"
That’s terrible.
“Well, it depends on who you ask. In their world I am their worst nightmare," he says taking on the task bravely. “I’ve lived with that all my life, you live with rejection all your life." These words resonating with inferred meanings about his relationship with his father. "I just feel like I'm being accurate with my feelings with the music I make.
It hurts, it hurts when I first see [criticism] but now I don't give a shit. Fuck them!" he laughs. "And thank them. This is the truth from me, but everybody's music is the truth from them. Everybody."
Jeff Buckley has some interesting things to say about music, especially because the cosmic, spiritual elements about music are so apparent in his work, maybe it makes him more aware of it, too. I tell that I don't believe all bands are truthful with their music.
“OH SURE. It is the truth from them. Honey, if you look,
I guarantee you, you meet the band, you see the music. If you let yourself see what there is to see.
“Music has no language to it,” he continues. "There's no way to describe it. But inside... the dream, the subconscious picture and sensations and memories, those things are immediately accessed by music, anybody's music, the stuff that pisses you off or that makes you cold with nothing or that totally makes you weep like an animal. You know, cos you're dull sometimes, you're dull and unimaginative, and there's music to fit that, definitely. Or, you feel everything's flowing for you, a billion answers come to you, there's music for that."
Musicians, he says, their personality musically "is sort of like their personality sexually. It has that same dynamic. When you express yourself musically, you really, you really," he exhales a gush of breath, "you make an unseen part of yourself apparent, except, not only is it unseen, it's intangible. That's what's weird about music and what's unique, there's a physical act involved and a spiritual act involved, but you don't really see the effects, and when you make love, perchance, you really see the person's personality in their actions."
It seems as though Jeff Buckley strives to minimise the crap in his life. He looks at things in obtuse ways, he squeezes meanings from music that are easy to feel but much harder to understand and explain. He tries to eliminate superficiality and experience life sensually, always thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, connecting everything to music.
"Yeah," he sighs softly, "but I've got other crap, believe me, I've got other crap. You might think I have an attribute that's admirable, but me as a person, I guarantee you, as a person is very fallible. Things are very hard. But, yes, that's true, I see that analogy and I experience that, I've been wondering about it my whole life. What is that connection to music? Why is it that? Why isn't it ice cream?"
Jeff Buckley doesn't have all the answers, but he thinks about the questions more than most.
