Classic album: Jeff Buckley – Grace

I find it difficult to listen to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 without bringing to mind the tragic events that they foreshadowed. The softer part of my consciousness is prone to rewarding the music with more credit than is warranted, perhaps out of sympathy. With Jeff Buckley’s Grace however, I have no such afflictions.

Having said this, it’s not as if Grace doesn’t try to lure its listeners into that trap on more than one occasion. From the outset, the echoing guitar harmonics of ‘Mojo Pin’ work alongside Buckley’s eerie, wordless vocals to create a soundscape evoking images of the supernatural, the uncontrollable and the inevitable. The proceeding title track goes one further. “Have a little wine, we both might go tomorrow”, Buckley murmurs over a relentless picked guitar pattern, unknowingly poignant in his instruction.

But as I’ve said, Grace is an incredible feat – regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that we now know it in. The next three tracks -’Last Goodbye’, ‘Lilac Wine’ (written by composer James Shelton), and ‘So Real’ – are a chance to evaluate the album from an unbiased standpoint. ‘Last Goodbye’ is perhaps as close as Grace gets to a standard pop song, with Buckley howling “kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me out of desire, baby no consolation” over a background of jangly strumming and wonderfully orchestrated strings. Then enters the slow-burning ‘Lilac Wine’, an altogether more refined affair sure to send any listener into the persona of a dreamy recluse. Following that is ‘So Real’, hiding just around the corner. It’s the heaviest song of the record so far, complete with a startlingly feedback-drenched bridge.

A criticism is that Grace isn’t as concise as it could have been. The idea of Buckley as a small child often crosses my mind, a child unable to remain concentrated on any given thing for a prolonged amount of time. Even within these last three songs, we’ve seen him swing through chart-topper, almost operatic crooner and impassioned rocker.

On the flip side, this range in genre and style also presents itself as a talent; if you’re not convinced by the original ten tracks alone, have a listen to the bonus disc of the Legacy Edition of Grace. It sees Buckley cover influences ranging from country blues on ‘Parchman Farm Blues’ to soul and gospel on ‘I Want Someone Badly’. The disc is a totally separate achievement.

And what follows is this record’s Iron Lung. ‘Hallelujah’ is to Buckley what ‘Creep’ is to Radiohead. Whilst in itself a incredible song, ‘Hallelujah’ goes some way to overshadowing the rest of the record. This is not an attack on Grace, just a frustration that only one tenth of Buckley’s genius will ever make it to number two off the back of some X Factor tyrant. No worries, the heartfelt ‘Lover You Should’ve Come Over’ follows to relieve me of my trauma.

‘Corpus Christi Carol’ is next, acting most prominently as a showcase for Buckley’s unrivalled voice.  Where most artists probably suffer from a lack of formal vocal training, it seems that the only repercussion of this with Jeff is that nobody was around to inform him that a voice should in fact have an upper limit. Where most could only hope to muster a frail falsetto at such heights, he manages a full-blown head voice and a performance to shatter glass and mind alike. Like his father before him, Buckley often used his jaw-dropping gift more as an instrument rather than a voice, and again, like his father, did this to devastating effect.

But after a mere three minutes of calm, ‘Eternal Life’ welcomes in badass Buckley-form once more – guitar slung low and overdrive edging maximum. Where his silky vocal performance stunned on the previous track, Buckley now turns on the growl, giving the straight rock epic exactly what it begs for. The album’s production is highlighted once again, returning focus to the underlying string parts, a touch of class set against the otherwise wild and untamed proceedings.

The final piece of the album comes in the form of ‘Dream Brother’. It opens with a sitar-esque slide guitar introduction, highlighting yet another of Buckley’s musical influences – Qawwali, the devotional music of Pakistan, (see: his take on Ali Kahn’s Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hai on Live at Sin – it fantastically baffles his audience). This soon dissolves into a spooky plucked guitar part reminiscent of the opener we heard all but fifty minutes ago. It’s a warning, apparently written to Chris Dowd, an L.A. friend of Buckley’s about to walk out on his pregnant girlfriend. “Don’t be like the one that made me so old” mumbles Buckley, referencing his father in this fittingly unsettling goodbye.

It is easy to look at this album and only think of what might have been if events had unfolded differently; to wonder whether further accomplishments may have followed down the road, or if this would have remained Buckley’s magnum opus. But the sad truth is we shall never know (even if we do have the promises of Sketches for My Sweetheart The Drunk to go by). If you’re asking my opinion, I think a record as good as Grace could’ve only been setting us up for a fall: right?