Few men prayed love and music with such a dedication as Jeff Buckley. And few managed to get as much love with just one album. Few listeners didn’t fall in love with Grace and THAT voice – and it has fans between both pop and metal musicians, young and old people... Ladies and gentlemen, musical masterpiece of love!
I'm lying in my bed, the blanket is warm
This body will never be safe from harm
Still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal
Touch my skin to keep me whole
Dreamingly whispered spells of love fill Mojo Pin with love from their first notes. But this song is in fact a struggle with oneself – from ‘my love, give me more’ to ‘don’t wanna weep for you, don’t wanna know’. And it perfectly shows how capricious a heart can be. So does the music swing between shy arpeggios and intense rides.
Title song is an astonishing combination of simple acoustic guitar parts, dry drums and strings. And as Jeff sings ‘Wait in the fire’ it really seems that this song burns marks on your ears. Marks reminding you to come back to this tune. Singing gets much braver in this song and together with distorted parts of synthesizer it really blows my head off.
Last Goodbye drops on peacefully – cute, fat bass riff, simplified background and slowly growing voice shows how wide and deep it is. Shouldn’t all splits be that happy in sound? Even though it’s a little bitter:
Kiss me, please kiss me
But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation
Jeff’s goodbye is full of peaceful regret not anger.
Lilac Wine is harder tune to me. The cover of James Shelton however greatly prepared, can’t charm me as much as Jeff’s original songs. Lullaby-like, with 80s singing manners and hardly any music apart from vocals. Yet it’s one of the best lyrics and a really good song after a couple of listens.
So Real(ly) thrilled I am each time I listen to nr 5! Amazingly suiting guitars and crawling vocals (not to mention lowly whispered bridge!) easily make one of the rock masterpieces. Again Jeff shows how much he can do with his voice still being more passionate than all modern singers taken together. He’s shaken and mysterious while he wonders but clear in his scream ‘Oh it was so real!’
Since I come from poor generation that was raped in the youth with Shrek’s Fiona’s Hallelujah obsession, I never could enjoy song in original L. Cohen version without instant image of green ogres swimming in the mug. Yes, that sucked. But when I heard Jeff’s remake a few times I began to appreciate beauty of this song. Hoarse voice of young man that spends way too much time kissing and whispering love spells, ascetic guitar (and well, a couple of views of live performances) and green horror disconnected from the music;)
Lover, You Should've Come Over is a song about unability to keep a relationship despite much love.
Yes I, I feel too young to hold on
And I'm much too old to break free and run
Too deaf dumb and blind to see the damage I've done
Sweet lover you, should've come over
Oh love well I'm waiting for you.
Music is a lovely, well-learned homework (to do: listen to some good classic rock, e.g. Dire Straits, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin) with a bluesy vocal melody. Yummy!
Corpus Christi Carol as a remake of old english carol shows more elegiac, spiritual intrests. Oh happy thee if thoust church has singers like Jeff!
But our boy was obviously a rock soul with some punky ideas, so Eternal Life is a thrilling, rocking tune with magnifying guitar (those cracks!<3) and passionate, aggressive struggle with microphone. I could really love hard rock if it was a bit more like this. A curious fact – someone told Jeff that he can’t sing louder than violin. Well he tried, check result in last minute.
Yet it’s a magnifying Dream Brother that sticks to our hearts most. Sad, very sensual song with a beautiful lyric and amazing musical background (lovely combination of acoustic guitars, harp + hypnotising drums). Last note hanging in the air won’t make you forget it...
... but if you enjoyed that romance, check bonus disc from Legacy Edition as it holds equally amazing songs with an opening perfect Forget Her (that almost made it to standard edition) that shall tear you apart.
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