The Jeff Edition

In this edition of Shut Up & Listen to the Songs, I delve deep into the life and output of none other than... Jeff Buckley.

Reviewing the recent Amy Berg documentary It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (spoiler alert: it's excellent). I give an overview of his life - a review of the doc - then a walkthrough of his albums, live albums, EPs & compilations.  It's basically a love letter to the guy.

It's been a wonderful to contemplate not only what a brilliant an artist he was, but the influence he's had on me through listening the past 25 years...

Shust Up & Listen to the Songs is a Lost Jim Scarecrow Production

email: shutupandlistentothesongs@gmail.com

IG: @shut_up_listen_pod

Transcript

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The best thing you can say is that they did him justice as an artist. Shut up and listen to the songs. Hello and welcome to Shut Up and Listen to the Songs with me, Ben Wilson. Thank you for joining me. I really hope you're well. I want to take the opportunity today to do a deep dive into one of my very favourite artists, an absolute legacy artist, somebody who's so special that I only I usually refer to them by their first name only. This is Jeff Buckley, or Jeff, as I will be saying for the rest of the show. That's Nick Drake. Nick Cave will be a legacy, he's a legacy artist, but he's also contemporary. And I kind of learned and heard about the myth and the legend when I discovered him in the early 2000s. It's called It's Never Over. But before we get to the documentary, I'd just like to do kind of like a boilerplate introduction to those who don't know about Jeff Buckley. He was born in November 1966 to Mary G. Bear and Tim Buckley, who was a 60s folk artist. He grew up estranged from his father, and his dad, Tim Buckley, died when Jeff was nine years old. As you can imagine, this had a huge impact on his life. And even though he grew up with a stepdad, um, you know, missing his biological father figure, had a huge impact emotionally. Um, and then also throughout his life, he would have a cultural legacy. So he grew up in California, he went to high school, and then he studied for a year at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood before dropping out. Um he was just all the time in various bands and absorbing different musical techniques, different musical influences, um, different styles. He was an absolute sponge. Um, and you know, combined with his incredible falsetto voice and guitar playing skills, uh, you know, he just kind of he just matured and developed um, you know, all throughout his his young years. He played around in various uh bands in Los Angeles, um, but he kind of crisscrossed between the coasts in the US, um, going to New York a few times uh for what he referred to as his cafe days before then going back to Los Angeles. Um but he relocated to New York um answering a call to be in a tribute concert to his dad. Um, a guy called Gary Lucas invited him over and kind of um you know made sure that he was okay in regards to somewhere to stay. Um and you know, people look looked after him. Um, you know, people kind of just really wanted to mother him basically and kind of do the best they could for him. And you know, they would give him guitars and they would give him rooms and they would give him meals. Um and yeah, um it was in those those cafe days in New York where he would uh quite often work a shift in a coffee shop. Um so the venue he was playing at, then in the evening he would just kind of grab his guitar and just play to all the patrons, and he would you know have this incredible repertoire of like either his own songs or songs like uh Nina Simone and Led Zeppelin and Edith Piaf and the Smiths. Um and uh he also had a wonderful love of um Asian music. He played with Nusrat Ali Fatakhan, um, and yeah, he was as I say just an absolute polyglot of music, and it was during playing these um cafe sessions that the the big label execs kind of um would start queuing up with their limos outside and wanting to see this this legendary um son of uh this cult musician, um, and you know the crowds got bigger, and there was basically a bidding war for his signature to sign for a major record label. Um, and in the end, he signed for Columbia. Um, Jeff was really skeptical of the record industry based on the experience of his father. Um, and you know, it was kind of pitched to him as in we see you as a legacy artist, you know, we've got Bob Dylan, we've got Bruce Springsteen, we're not gonna, you know, put you on cereal boxes, we're not gonna like oversaturate you, we're gonna kind of give you the the time and the space to breathe as an artist, and um, you know, they did have really large budgets, um, but the kind of the transition from being a small venue, intimate, wonderful performer to being somebody proficient in the studio who can then kind of have a quote unquote product to take out and tour it and to kind of get that acclaim and that fan base that kind of proved quite challenging um to kind of to square the circle with that, um and also as well because he was um you know he was the very antithesis of the current um zeitgeist at the time, you know, it was the early 90s were the the peak of grunge culture, um, you know, where guitars were loud, um, you know, screaming, and you had this delicate, wafish, um, falsetto voiced um troubadour. Jeff didn't want to lean in on his family legacy, which the record label respected. Um, but yeah, they kind of found it hard um how to pitch him in the um in the contemporary scene. Um the one studio album he did release, uh Grace, was released in August 1994. Um it was it got positive reviews, um, but I think a lot of the people who were experienced with Jeff and kind of who'd seen him play a lot, they were left a bit confused um at the fact that it sounded so overly polished and um almost as if it was like a cover version of himself or a cover version of the songs and the performances that they knew it got good reviews and he went touring um across the world. Um he played many festivals. It was seen as a solid if unspectacular debut on his major label. When it came around to recording his second album, um, one that he wanted to title My Sweetheart the Drunk, he had relocated out to Memphis, Tennessee for like a change of energy, um, you know, change of scene. Yeah, it was it was out in Memphis where he tragically died um at an incredibly young age in May 1997. Uh he drowned in the Wolf River Harbour. Um he wasn't a strong swimmer, and um he was on his way to a music studio with one of his bandmates, and uh they'd pulled over for a swim and um in a the wake of one of the tugboats um that was passing um when his bandmate wasn't looking, dragged him under and he sadly drowned. Um the album which he was working towards uh was released a year later. It was known as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk as it contained studio recordings um but also four-track demos, so it was a very rough outline of the album. Um for me, it's it's an incredible work, um, even as unpolished and unfinished as it was, it for me really captures the essence of him as an artist. In addition to the posthumous album, there's also been various live albums that have been released, um, reissues, um, and the the acclaim and the acknowledge of him as an artist um has only just grown really since his death in 1997. I discovered him in 2000 um with his live album Mystery White Boy. Again, I'll come back to that later. Um, and you know, the fact we're in 2026 now, and people are still kind of wanting to tell stories about him and kind of wanting to bring him to a new audience, um, I find it's really interesting. And the the biopic slash documentary, um, yeah, I'm really curious to see what they they do about it because as a person, there well, as an artist, there wasn't that much live footage of him recorded. Um, these were in pre-digital camera ages, um, and uh, you know, pre-internet days. It was quite interesting in one of the the DVDs that I have of him like uh performing in uh the Chine Cafe, uh, you know, he he asked somebody to put their camera away. I think they just even had like a little Polaroid, like a little point and click. And uh he really wanted that intimacy between the artist and the audience, and he hate well, he hated the idea of the walls being broken, um, you know, with over documentation, so I don't know what he would have done in this modern age of smartphone cameras. Um, he also didn't really get on very well with the internet and the gossip culture that was um just very, very embryonic um in the mid uh mid-90s. It's gonna be really interesting to see what this um documentary does. Um, I hear that it leans into um quite a lot of the voice notes that he recorded, um the answering machine messages, um, which were you know uh a creative medium at the time. Apparently it leans into his um his feminism. Um he had many strong women in his life, um, and this supposedly looks into that. Um I'm gonna be watching watching the film um at home. It's now available on streaming platforms, and then I'll review it at the end. Um I won't be re I won't be recording any of the film itself for copyright reasons, as you can imagine. Okay, so um yeah, let's have a watch. Shop and listen to the songs. Okay, so I've just finished watching It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley, and yeah, it's amazing. It's so emotional. Um, it's such a celebration of him as a person, an artist. Um, it's a celebration of his music. Um, and obviously it's just it's just crushingly sad um about his end. Um yeah, they the best thing you can say is that they did him justice as an artist in this documentary. Um it's it's so well crafted and it's so well thought out, and obviously it's immaculately soundtracked, and the mixture of footage, interviews, photos, they do these wonderful animation um montages, and based on his his sketches and doodles, um, it's it's just so well done, and the great thing is that as a fan, I feel like I got that fan service, you know, that I was never bored watching footage that I may have seen before, performances and songs I knew so well. Um and there were other new gems and like hidden bits and um interesting stories that that were that were great. Um and it it rode those two horses really well because if you were new to Jeff Buckley, you you would be captivated and you would be instantly taken in and you would want to discover him and discover more. Um yeah, so as a music documentary, it's amazing, it's really essential. Um yeah, and it kind of one thing I really wanted was to feel like I was spending time with him, and in lots of ways I did. Um, you know, he was a he was a complex person, and in lots of ways he was quite broken, but he was also really beautiful, and that really, really shone through, and there are some moments in there that are just so poignant, oh my days. Um you know the how the movie ends, um, with his with his mother listening to the last voicemail that he recorded for her. Um yeah, and I think I think it shed like a really interesting light on a couple of chapters of his life that I knew about, but kind of not really to the the full extent and the full depth. I mean, broadly speaking, it's it's a chronology, you know, it goes in in linear order, doesn't do anything uh clever or silly in regards to that. You know, it starts off the first 15 minutes are his family history and his childhood, and it really pulls no punches in regards to like his parental situation, um, and you know, the the effect that has on him, and there's so many photos. Um, and yeah, you see this just beautiful, beautiful young kid. Um, and yeah, it kind of as I laid out in the boilerplate, um, it tells you about um you know his school life a bit. Uh there's some absolutely amazing footage where he's in a covers band and they're playing Roxanne by the police and it's it's no perfect. And like they got um who is it, Ben Harper on there, and he's like, oh my god, he's in the same pitch, you know, like everybody would change it to suit their vocal, but he just he could replicate melodies and harmonies just from hearing them once, and I think um you're from a from a movie you're never gonna get like a super in-depth like Theseo's amazing technical chops that he could do, but it really did give you that impression of kind of what a what an organic or a natural musician he was. It certainly gave you an impression of um what a wonderful voice he had. You know, I think I think it sometimes kind of it's a bit like, well, what did the Romans ever do for us? You know, of course you've got the roads, you don't get Jeff Buckley without the voice, um, but yeah, it it really does have some wonderful live performances, some which I I don't think I'd ever seen before. Um there's one in particular, um where he's singing Mojo Pen live, and you know, the the hairs on your arms stand up. And there were quite a few moments like that because like at various points they'll do his other um compositions and uh yeah, like his musical chops are are fully on display. Um, you know, it's uh the story of him is told really well, you know, from those high school years to the the tribute concert in New York. Um I really loved the part um which was his time in New York East Village, where it was like an incredible artistic bohemian scene where you know they were doing all sorts of funny heart projects, and he was there with his girlfriend Rebecca Moore, and we meet um his his guitarist Michael Ty, um, who's he's a big part of the experience. Um that was really nice. Um, you know, and how his his coffee days, his yeah, coffee shop days um kind of evolved. And yeah, about how he met various record executives and um you know his wariness of the music industry, you know, it's all kind of it's all there and it's all really well paced and it all gives like appropriate weighting, and you know, you'll have these wonderful moments of like brevity, um, you know, when you when you're learning about him and um yeah, it it kind of it goes through all of it, it goes through the recording of Grace up in Woodstock. Um I did think that they kind of like maybe rose tinted glasses, like the the experience of recording Grace and kind of like its its critical acclaim on release. Um I think they kind of maybe oh they kind of gave it a more modern perspective. Um, you know, that I don't know, they did they they were honest and said like oh it sold well in Europe and in UK um and it did all right in America, which you know is a kind of a fair assessment. Um I didn't really appreciate the um the exhaustion of his touring schedule. Um, you know, the fact that he toured solidly for two to three years and just how that that basically not broke him, but it really exhausted him mentally. His relationship suffered, his body suffered, um and you know, coming to the end of it, um the band, you know, were taking various drugs, um, himself included, and it was those moments where he kind of felt the pressure to produce that sophomore effort that things started to really fray around the sides. Um that all of his like life traumas kind of came out. Um and yeah, he had what he described as a manic depressive episode, and yeah, you could definitely categorize it as poor mental health um when he was living when he was living in Memphis, um and that a lot of people around him were really concerned about him. Um there's one story that Ben Harper tells about being at a festival in France in 1995 where he's agreed with him that they want to go watch Paige and Plant, who were performing at the time together, the the Zeppelin duo. And he was looking around for Jeff, like at the front in the pit at the side of the stage, and then he sees him because he's climbed up on the speaker stack like 30, 40 feet, or like really, really dangerously high up, right in front of the speaker to experience you know, these rock gods. Um and it kind of it signposts his his instability. Um, you know, and it's it even had the footage, like quite grainy 90s footage. Um but yeah, that was something that that if I had remembered if I had read previously, then I didn't remember. Um and yeah, um the the bit where they do cover his his sophomore effort um sketches, My Sweetheart the Drunk, um you know, they play snippets and they say basically how it came from a really pure place and that he he'd kind of he'd like released these songs from himself that like we're just waiting to come out and that like his authentic self could do that, um, which I think is a really great way to consider um that that posthumous album. Um I mean throughout the film his mortality kind of hangs heavy with the shadow of his father, and towards the end you see various clips of interview footage where um they like ask him where he's gonna be in ten years' time, and he's like, I don't know. There's a I just see a void. Um and the interview with Joan Vassa, um, his his then romantic connection. Um you know, he said, I don't think I'm gonna be here that long. And he kind of in a way he kind of found it freeing, but you know, was he hugely concerning to everyone around him? Um and yeah, it's it's so sad because he is to to indie music what what the Titanic is, the cruise liners, or what the Muni K disaster was, the promising football teams. And you know, we'll never know what he would have what he would have gone on to do. Um you know, his his catalogue, you know, he's got one studio album. You know, but yeah, he sits at that very top tier of songwriters' performance. Um yeah, it's it's it's it's just beyond tragic. And you know, as a as a document to kind of make you appreciate that this is a brilliant film. Yeah, it's probably great. Um yeah, you can stream it, go and do that. Um yeah, I'm sure you'll see it many times over. Um the filmmaker Amy Berg has done an absolute wonderful job. Um a shout out, shout out to the um animation supervisor on there as well. Um yeah, it's just it's just brilliant. Um yeah, I'm gonna talk um a little bit more about uh yeah, some of my favourite Jeff records and what I think is a a good um a good way into Jeff Buckley. Um so yeah, stick about. Thanks. Hi there and welcome back. Thanks for sticking with me. Um yeah, it's a day after watching the documentary and I'm still blown away with um how moved I was by it. It was it was just brilliant. Um I think that's the thing about Jeff is that um you know obviously he died at such a tragically young age, he was what, 30, 31, and you know, obviously whilst you reflect on um the the loss and the the potential things he could have done, um, you know, watching a film like that kind of makes you realise how full his life was, um, how how much of the world he saw, how many people he met, um, you know, what he did, and it's yeah, it just kind of puts it into perspective. Um, so I found that was great. I also find it quite interesting as a side note, the t-shirt that Jeff's mother wore when she did her main interview for the piece. Um, you're kind of like, oh, she's got a she's got some type on that t-shirt, but it's kind of obscured by a jacket. And then as the movie kind of goes on, you kind of realise what the second word is, and then that kind of makes you realise what the first word is, and it's like, oh right, okay, well, that's that's pretty unambiguous. Um, you know, should you get to watch the film? Um, it's exec produced by Brad Pitt, who um is he makes my Jeff Buckley fandom, you know, look absolutely piffling in comparison. So um, you know, uh it's great. Um, I'm sure he had a a good involvement there. Um, yeah, what I would like to do um just really quickly is take a look at kind of like the the ranking of the material of Jeff that um has been released, um, you know, to kind of give you a good steer if you wanted to get into the world of Jeff Buckley. I won't lie, he's probably not the most easy accessible artist, um, but he's definitely worth the perseverance, and if you get the right stuff, then he'll live with you forever. So um, yeah, that's that's kind of where I stand on it. Yeah, so if we kind of start off with um the kind of what I'd regard as like the C-grade um albums, there's various um best of um you know compilations. Um there's also a lot of EPs that uh Columbia released when he was being um when he was kind of like being rumoured and kind of touted word of mouth. Um I've got a box set of the the Grace EPs. Let me just grab it. Yeah, so there's five here. There's the POT Radio Theatre, the Surreal EP, Life in the Bat Clan, the Grace EP, and Last Goodbye. Um, and they've all got really good versions of his own numbers but also covers. Um, and yeah, they're worth a listen to. You can find this on a streaming service. Um, you don't need to go and buy the the recent reissue on vinyl or um an original 2002 Boxer, which I believe this is what this is. Um yeah, I it's it's kind of like for the completists, so you don't really need that. Um other other albums um that are in here, um You and I, which was basically a um an album mostly made of covers that's in 2016. Um again, it it is good, um you know, but it's not it's it's not pure Jeff. Um, you know, so you know again you can give that a listen to. Um there was also a best of album released in 2007, Surreal Songs from Jeff Buckley. Again, that was kind of um put together from various sources, which um he had no involvement, obviously. Um, but yeah, uh that that's there. There was the interesting album material recorded between 91 and 92 with Gary Lucas. Um the album's called Songs to No One, um, and basically this is um sessions, home tapes, club performances, um when the two were collaborating together off the back of the Tim Buckley tribute concert. I have listened to this somewhere along the line, and I probably thought, hmm, yeah, that's alright. Yeah, that's that's not bad. Um and yeah, I'd probably still stand by that if I were to listen to it again. So yeah, that's kind of the uh the C grade material. Um as I say, if you're if you're really into the completism, um the the two main albums that I would probably categorize in the the B tier. Um actually no, there's three albums. Um there is uh Grace, his studio album. Um I felt a bit bad that I was dunking on it yesterday after watching the movie, and I went back and listened to it again this morning, and I think by and large I do stand by what I said in that it felt a bit overproduced. Um there are some times when the orchestral bits are a bit too heavy-handed, or where there's kind of um like if you've got like a Hammond organ on there, it kind of feels a bit end-of-the-peer waltzy. Um but I think the the main issue I have with it and kind of why it's not in the the A category, because obviously the songs are great, um, you know, the the musical performances are really good, um, but I think Jeff just wasn't experienced with being in a studio or such a big studio, such an expensive studio, and I just kind of feel that um yeah, the whole energy to it just sounds a bit stilted compared to some of my favourite live performances. So yeah, I still kind of stand by that um it's a good album for sure, you know, and it's as I say, it's the only studio on of his completed that we've got. It's really interesting actually. I sorry this is going very, very into the weeds. I listened to a random CD copy of it that I pulled out of a folder, and on the back of the album, as in the last track, was the previously unreleased track track uh Forget Her, um, which I remember downloading off Napster, the original Napster, at the turn of the century. Um, this was before I got kicked off it, thanks, Manit Street Preachers. And um yeah, I never thought that it was on just kind of like a standalone copy of the album because when it was eventually released as part of the legacy edition of Grace, it was on a separate disc. And so I was just like, oh, have they just decided to start banging this onto the album then? Which doesn't it's like it's like oh yeah, you can have a bonus track, but you know, as long as the artist themselves approves of that, which you know, he he especially wanted it left off the album. Um yeah, so uh that was just a little curious forget her by Jeff Buckley. It's an amazing song, unbelievable. Um the other um big album that I would categorize in the uh B tier is the Shine set. There's a really big box of um, it's a double C D's two two recording sessions that he recorded um at Chine. They basically drove a recording truck outside the cafe and they tried to capture his the vibe of his copy days. Um and it it does have some wonderful moments. Um, it does show you quite how sardonic and um cutting his humour could be at times. Um so uh you know that there are wonderful moments, there are kind of um bits where it loses focus. Um, but yeah, it's a really interesting document uh to get into that. Um the other really good live album that I would put in there is uh Live Olympia. So I think this was a performance in Paris in I think it's 95. Let me have a look. Yeah, 95. Uh July the 6th and 7th. Um released in 2001. It is great, um, it's probably great. Um, you know, the fact that it's kind of taken just from two nights, really, really consistent. It was recently released on vinyl for the first time, it's the last record still day. Yeah, if you're if you're going new in on Jeff, that that is a good um that's a good good thing to get. Um, but yeah, the couple of things that I want to um share with you that I put in the the A tier, the absolutely elite class Jeff material. Um one is the the first the first Jeff album that I got. Um I'll never forget the day actually. I bought not only Jeff Buckley Mystery White Boy off the back of reading an enemy review, but I also bought Figure 8 by Elliot Smith. I had some birthday money and I bought these CDs from a record shop in Worthing, um, near where I grew up. Um I think it was maybe my 17th birthday. No, 16th birthday money. Um, yeah, you can imagine what a fun adolescent I was. Um and this this Jeff Buckley live album, Mystery White Boy, um, you know, which is songs from '95 and '96, it's recorded all around the world. There's ones in um Paris, in Australia, America. And yeah, as I say, it's not the easiest thing to get into. It took me quite a while to kind of really understand and appreciate the energy that he was delivering these songs with. Um they like on a first casual listening, they could seem kind of like a bit all over the place. Um, but yeah, when you when you kind of realize that actually he's walking this high wire with like amazing poise and conviction, um yeah, they just say fantastic. There's uh a mixture of um his own compositions, so Dream Brother, Mojo Pin, um Last Goodbye, Eternal Life, Grace. Um, and also there's there's some new songs on here. Um I Woke Up in a Strange Place, um, What Will You Say? Um, and you've got covers like uh Lilac Wine, um, The Man That Got Away, and then at the end, um the album finishes with uh a medley of Hallelujah, the Leonard Cohen cover, and I Know It's Over, the Smith song from The Queen Is Dead, which for me is is the definitive maybe not definitive, but it's the best version of of the song that he's very famous for. Um they kind of did a postscript on the film about how uh his version of Alleluia has over a a billion streams now, um, and it kind of reminded me that oh yeah, it went to number one in the UK singles chart one Christmas when Leona Lewis was releasing her version and somebody um quite brilliantly uh organised it to uh uh you know the Jeff Buckley version to actually get to number one. So I found the seven inch that I bought at the time, and the seven inch itself is backed with a live version, a complete version of I know it's over. Um so yeah, that's that's great. And another wonderful thing about this um CD, it comes with a lovely like booklet um box. Yeah, it's like a hard, it's a hard card case um rather than a jewel case. But there's a bonus CD um and it's got um a cover of That's All I Ask Um a version of Lovey You Should Have Come Over, which this one, if you can find it on your streaming service, is just absolutely killer. You know there's sometimes there's sometimes something about um a live version that just literally sucks the air out of your lungs, and this version does that for me. Um and yeah, the third track on this bonus disc is another version of Surreal. Oh, in fact, Surreal isn't on the other um album. So yeah, this this CD that I've got, um I've played it to absolute to the end. Um I think it still does work. It's one of my very, very favourite obsessions. Um and yeah, I've even got a vinyl copy of this album, but to be honest, I probably listened to the vinyl copy two or three times, if that. Let me grab it here. Yeah, it looks absolutely mint. And it doesn't have those bonus tracks. Um, yeah, this was released on 2018. And yeah, but I've played it two or three times. Um, you know, sometimes uh people are like, oh yeah, albums on vinyl. Well obviously that's me. Um I think there are actually some albums that that kind of like they the time and the place that you experience with them, they they only sound good on CD, or you know, they're so so strongly associated with being on CD that like, oh that's the experience. Um I don't own any of the Oasis albums on vinyl, for example. Um anyway, I digress um because I also want to talk about um my other half of the the brilliant um favourite Jeff Things um that I've got and it brings me to his his actual opus masterpiece, which is Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Um it's given me a different perspective watching the film to kind of to to hear about the place he was in when he wrote a lot of these songs. Basically, it's it's a double album. There's um there's only a couple of covers. Some of them are recorded in a studio, but like haven't been um they were kind of like studio demos. Some a lot of them, the second side of the album was um four track home demos, and as a as a a work of low fidelity recordings, it's just absolutely wonderful um how he gets so much expression and um creativity from like a really basic one microphone setup. There's there's a wonderful tune on um side five of this album, uh side five of the uh the vinyl. It's called Gunshot Glitter. Uh and the drum the drum beat is just him tapping his finger on a microphone. Just dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum um you wouldn't know it. Uh and the guitar's great and his vocals are unbelievable. Some of the lyrics, um the looks throughout the album I just wonder if it was as good as some of the content in um on Grace. There is this one line on Gunshot Glitter that just says it all. Um and it sounds a bit like a throwaway line, but when you kind of live with it for a while, it's it's really incredible. It's be at one with all you disown for true love has come to us all. And it's like alright, yeah, yeah. You know, when you've when you've lived through a load of shit, but um you know you found true love, then yeah, you can let it all go. And um yeah, I think if there was ever you know a kind of a line that succinctly showed his beauty or his eloquence, then yeah, that is it. Um Gunshot Glitter, amazing song. Uh just going through some of the highlights to me. Um Everybody Here Wants You is just fantastic. Opened once, um is is great. Nightmares by the Sea, uh Yard of Blonde Girls, yeah. Uh then we then we kind of move on to Morning Theft, Vancouver, You and I. Haven't You Heard is so good, and it kind of it really leans into the fact that he was such a an idiosyncratic performer. Um this album just when when you want to know what a brilliant um songwriter, as much as a performer, you know, all of the um the other live albums or Grace, you've got the performance there, but this is kind of where he shows you kind of he shows the inside of himself. Um a tune like I know we could be so happy, baby, if we wanted to be. Unbelievable. There's a cover of Genesis's uh back in New York City, which is yeah, it's brilliant, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, uh Demon John is so good, and again, a tune like uh Your Flesh is so nice is amazingly idiosyncratic, um, and it finishes with a cover of uh Satisfied Mind. Um, yeah, I I adore this album so much. This is something that I would go back into the Burning Building to get. Um I got this original copy in a record store in Edinburgh, I think it was in 2001. Yeah, I was up in Scotland viewing a university, and um a friend I was staying with at the time took me record shopping. I got some incredible records that trip. Um, like a copy of Harvest by Neil Young, uh, another copy of Hunky Dory by David Bowie. Um, this this one is definitely up there as part of my favourite records. Um yes, so that's kind of like the um the roadmap through Jeff's material, but there is one um really, really important kind of supplementary um document to to mention, and that is the 2001 book, Dream Brother, The Life and Music of Jeff Buckley, written by David Brown. Um, it was it was released in 2001, which is crazy to think. It was so long ago, but because obviously the lives of these two men are so intertwined through through their love of music, um, and you know, genetics, that this is kind of the oracle on their life stories. Um, the research is there, the the quotes are there, um, the interviews with all the people, I think it's family approved, there's really great photos, there's there's very, very interesting stories. Um and yeah, if if you do go deep into um Jeff Buckley, um, you know, this is essential reading. Um you know, just quickly on the note of uh Tim Buckley, the two albums of his that I would definitely say are essential are Hello and Goodbye. I spent a whole summer listening to that album just absolutely solidly. It was it was great. Um and I would also really recommend Greetings from LA, which is yeah, it's it's really brilliant. Um so then, yeah, I think we've we've we've covered Jeff, which uh was kind of unexpected. I've been looking forward to seeing that movie for so long. It was it was everything I hoped for. Um, and I'm sure I'm gonna go really, really deep into listening to his music and just loving him again with fresh ears. So um I hope that's uh enlightened you or uh inspired you slightly. Um yeah, this is the kind of stuff that would be really great to put out on the pod. So um any ideas, suggestions, let me know what you think. Um the email is shut up and listen to the songs at gmail.com. I'm on Instagram at shut underscore up underscore listen underscore pod. But yeah, I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Take care.