Though It's My Time Coming, I'm Not Afraid

In 1998 or 1999 I crowded into the top floor of a little church in Noe Valley with a few hundred Jeff Buckley fans. Jeff's mom, Mary Guibert, was on a tour following Jeff's drowning in 1997. That night, Mary talked and answered questions and then played the "Mystery White Boy" DVD. Jeff's body and music were there onstage, and the TV was big enough that he looked more than half life-sized. At first the audience watched quietly, but after a few songs we began applauding, even whistling after each song, and it felt like being at a live concert. Just ... one where the musician wasn't there.It was the only "Jeff Buckley concert" I've ever attended. And it was a long time before I could watch moving images of him without feeling like I was looking at a ghost.I didn't hear Jeff's music when he was alive, a fact that breaks my heart (even though I question whether I would have heard of him if he hadn't drowned in the Wolf River that May night). I was working at the Wherehouse as a CD-slinger when he died and that's where I first heard his songs. It was after hours. I put on a used copy of "Grace" that we had in stock. I didn't like it right away. I was in the back of the store, sorting tapes, when "Hallelujah" came on. It's a good thing I was crouching, because I think I would have had to sit down. Its beauty was, and remains, crippling. From that point on I fell hard for "Grace," and that love has never left me. There are a number of songs I also love on "Sketches..." but I have a hard time losing myself in them because I know he planned to remake them. But I would be lying if I said I could live the rest of my life without ever needing to hear "New Year's Prayer," "Vancouver," "Everybody Here Wants You" or "You & I" again. I grieve for the music he never got to write, if only because it was so obvious from those two albums that his maturity and brilliance as a songwriter were only just beginning to develop. Thinking of how good he was, I wonder if the music world could have handled how good he could have become. Jeff's voice, which made me so intensely uncomfortable when I first heard it, became like a plow, turning my soul over and over, stirring the riches of my memory and creativity. His voice sparked in me a number of theories about the way voices work on primal level to make us feel, like the way the sound of a crying baby will make some women lactate and men experience a rush of protectiveness-inducing adrenaline, like the way the sound of a scream sends a chill of terror through us, like the way a buttery-soft croon makes us melt into pools of romantic trust. It was never Jeff's four-octave range that floored me, although that certainly helped. It was his ability to swerve from a whisper to a wail, his willingness to choose the passionate cry over the perfect trill, whatever the song needed. We need more singers brave enough to take those kinds of risks, to really use their voices to wake us up, stir our psyches. Kate Bush does it, but not many others are willing. I think it's obvious from the number of tribute songs what a huge loss Jeff's death was for the music world. Although he had not been in the business long, he touched so many artists, from his close friend Chris Cornell to Duncan Sheik, PJ Harvey and Ron Sexsmith. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd be PJ Harvey's "Memphis"; her own voice is so full of ache and regret for him, it makes me feel like someone is holding my hand while I long for him.Jeff wrote many good songs, but I think his most quintessential is the title track from "Grace." All of his best vocal qualities are present here, from the lilting bridge to the frenzied coda that makes my stomach feel like it's being scrambled -- to say nothing of his elegant, perfectly phrased guitar. "Grace" is not just a song for me, but a reminder of everything that is contained in that word; from the mundane definition that describes a quality of character that transcends the everyday, to the spiritual connotation that one is moving through the world with divine favor and blessing. I think, for a very short time, Jeff Buckley did just that.