And nobody ever came

Jeff Buckley - 'Dream Brother' (Grace - 1994)

It’s not typical for a debut album to be a swansong as well as an introduction. Typically, you have to look at bands that have imploded like The Sex Pistols or were making some form of artistic point by going no further - The La’s, The Unicorns, Life Without Buildings and Young Marble Giants tick that box. Even those who had a short career and either burnt out or faded away - such as Nirvana, Nick Drake or Joy Division managed at least one follow-up.

Even with a song named ‘Last Goodbye’ on the tracklisting, no one could have expected that fate for Jeff Buckley’s 1994 debut, Grace.

For those that don’t know, Buckley’s father was also a singer, Tim Buckley, who started as a folk singer and moved into more psychedelic and even touched on funk, soul and jazz as his work became more avant-garde. In 1965, Tim Buckley married Mary Guibert, and a little over a year, she was pregnant (with Jeff), and the marriage was over. Ten years later, Tim Buckley was dead from a h3ro1n overdose at the age of 28, and the eight-year-old Jeff, who’d met his father once, wasn’t invited to the funeral.

Before that, though, in 1968, Tim Buckley performed a gig at Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank¹ which previewed songs from his forthcoming album, Happy Sad, including ‘Dream Letter’, a song in which he pines for his son, wishing he could hold him.

In the early/mid-1990’s Buckley’s one-time roommate, Chris Dowd (of the ska/punk/funk fusion band Fishbone), has a pregnant girlfriend. Jeff Buckley, along with bassist Mick Grøndahl and his drummer Matt Johnson write ‘Dream Brother’ for him. Notice the apparent connection back to his father; it’s enough for a book on their lives to use that as a title as well as a tribute album.

Opening with a swirling, mystic and Eastern-sounding verse, indicating Buckley’s mindset, with dark angels watching over sleeping children. It’s only as we move past that opening that we get into the actual subject matter².

Buckley has said of the song;

It's a song about a friend of mine, who's led a rather excessive life... He is in trouble. This song is for him. I know what self-destruction can lead to, and I have tried to warn him. But I am one big hypocrite because when I called him up and told him about the song I'd written that same night I took an overdose of hash and woke up the next day feeling terrible. It is very hard not to give in to one's negative feelings. Life is total chaos.

Buckley touches on it there, but we can probably delve further into his psyche without being armchair psychiatrists. He implores him to stay with his pregnant girlfriend and not walk out as his father did.

Don't be like the one who made me so old

Don't be like the one who left behind his name

Cause they're waiting for you like I waited for mine

And nobody ever came

That’s a punch in the gut. The song also details the mother’s life, dealing with the torment of the child’s father beginning another relationship and “forgetting” the child. Towards the end, there is a line about fixing eyes to the floor and the world spinning around forever. It is such a great description of disorientation and lack of grounding that it surely must be autobiographical and potentially representative of Jeff Buckley’s childhood and issues with abandonment.

I sometimes wonder if the people who saw some of the songs from Grace performed live, or before that even, had any inkling of how fortunate they were to see and hear them? Thankfully we have a few live albums and DVDs to give us a clue.

Coming to the very end of the song, the album and Jeff Buckley’s studio output, we are left with potentially the most prophetic lines we will encounter on a closing track.

Asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over

In May 1997, Buckley drowned whilst swimming in the Mississippi River. He was barely a couple of years older than his father was when he died—leaving behind one album, a few live recordings, and sketches for his next album.

1. Captured on 1990’s Dream Letter: Live in London 1968

2. As the song develops, there are points that the guitar yelps and there is miaowing that unfortunately reminds me of Visiting Day’s ‘Erase Myself’ from The Sopranos ‘A Hit is a Hit’ (S1E10)