GRACE by Jeff Buckley: The Art of Yearning
When people talk about this album on the internet, they describe it as one of the greatest yearning albums, and they were not wrong. This is an album made by a yearner for other yearners to lose themselves to. If you have any nonchalant bone in your body when it comes to love, this album is genuinely not for you.
This album is fantastic because of the instrumentals, lyrics, and vocal performance by Jeff Buckley. Jeff always sings at a higher note that makes the atmosphere of the song and the beauty of the lyrics shine effortlessly, pulling at your heartstrings in a way you just have to appreciate — like you’re actually experiencing all those emotions with him.
Mojo Pin starts with gentle drums and instrumentals before it builds up to a heavy release in the middle and at the end of the song, capturing the era the album is from. Jeff Buckley stated that the song was about a dream of a black woman, as the lyrics convey an addiction to a person. Buckley described the song perfectly when he said:
"Sometimes if somebody you feel you need… the whole universe tells you that you have to have her, you start watching her favorite TV shows all night, you start buying her the things she needs, you start drinking her drinks, you start smoking her bad cigarettes, you start picking up the nuances in her voice, you sleep in — sometimes the most dangerous thing… this is called Mojo Pin."
The title track, Grace, sees Jeff sing about how it’s not so bad to face your mortality when you have true love. Having to face the fact that you might die when you’re in love with someone should, in theory, be a tough thing to do, but Buckley sees it from a different perspective: as he dies, his fading voice sings of love. The instrumentals on this track are eerie and heavy, matching the lyrics, but it also has a very catchy riff and an equally catchy chorus.
"Last Goodbye" starts with a magnetic bassline that sets the tempo for the entire song. Don’t let the upbeat nature of the instrumentals fool you — this is a depressing song. It’s about two people who love each other realizing they’re not truly meant for one another and have to end the relationship before they end up hurting each other. Lyrics like "Kiss me out of desire, baby, not consolation" show that even though the narrator has come to terms with what needs to happen, he’s still struggling to fully accept it.
"Lilac Wine" is a piano ballad about the narrator losing himself one night and getting drunk just to feel his lover again. Lyrics like "Listen to me, I cannot see clearly, isn’t that she coming to me?" show that the narrator knows what he’s seeing isn’t real but is still choosing to believe it in that moment because he’s been hypnotized by lilac wine. It’s also a cover of the song originally written by James Shelton.
Jeff collaborated with guitarist Michael Tighe on "So Real," a song about wanting to always be around the person you love, no matter how small the activity. The first verse of the song reads:
"Love, let me sleep tonight on your couch / And remember the smell of the fabric of your simple city dress."
That first verse practically explains everything about this song. The guitar solo by Michael Tighe in the middle of the track is electric and chaotic, adding so much to the song.
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"Hallelujah" is the sixth track on the album, a cover of the song written by Leonard Cohen about a love that has soured and gone stale. There’s a lot of religious imagery in this song, with references to women from the Bible. You probably heard this from Shrek for the first time. Buckley’s vocal performance here is fantastic as well — toward the end of the song, he sings the same line, "Hallelujah," with four different vocal deliveries.
"Lover, You Should’ve Come Over" is another single off the album that sees the narrator reflect on the mistakes of youth he made in relationships, mistakes that led him to being alone but still wishing his lover would come over because it’s not too late for them to reconcile. There’s a selfishness in the narrator reflected in the lyrics:
"Yes, I, I feel too young to hold on / And 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 / How long will I wait for you."
The instrumentals in the song are prominent, but at no point do they overshadow Buckley’s vocal performance.
"Corpus Christi Carol" is a cover of the Benjamin Britten piece, which Jeff included as a gift to his high school friend Roy Rollo. It’s also the shortest track on the album. Buckley described the carol as a fairytale about a falcon who takes the beloved of the singer to an orchard; the singer goes looking for her and arrives at a chamber where his beloved lies next to a bleeding knight and a tomb with Christ’s body in it. Buckley’s vocal performance continues to be a highlight on this track — to be able to sing that high and soft is truly remarkable.
"Eternal Life" is easily the angriest song on this record, as it was inspired by anger over a number of things. You can feel that anger and frustration from the moment the song starts to the moment it ends. Buckley spoke about the song in an interview: "This is a song about… it’s an angry song. Life’s too short and too complicated for people behind desks and people behind masks to be ruining other people’s lives, initiating force against other people’s lives on the basis of their income, their color, their class, their religious beliefs, their whatever…"
"Dream Brother" is a haunting track in its lyrics, melodies, and instrumentals, painting a rather dark picture. Buckley wrote the song as a warning to a friend of his (his "dream brother") against walking out on his pregnant wife, the same way Buckley’s own father did:
"’Cause they’re waiting for you like I waited for mine / And nobody ever came."
This track was originally intended as the last song on the album before "Forget Her" was added.
"Forget Her" is the final track, and it’s exactly about what its title suggests. It’s a song about the narrator trying to forget a lover who has caused him so much pain since the moment he met her, but still struggling to let her go. The third verse, especially, is transcendental.
Jeff Buckley proved with this album that yearning for someone you love is truly an art — that for portions of our lives, no matter how small, we shouldn’t be afraid to want that one person, to yearn, to love.
So if you love artists like Hozier and Noah Kahan, who sing about love like they’re worshiping their lover without an ounce of care for anything else, you should try this album. If you love artists like Radiohead and The Smiths, who have perfect atmospheres, incredible melodies, and vocal performances, you should also try this album. If you love love and everything about it, you should also try this album.
