Sketches for
My Sweetheart The Drunk
Jeff Buckley
Sony, 1998
Reviewed by
Ben French
Rock music is connected to death. You can read it in the lyrics of nearly
every songwriter, ranging from Bob Dylan to Marilyn Manson. You can hear it in tender
chords of Ray Charles and feel it in the blaring feedback of Sonic Youth.
Often, the greats try to transcend the inevitable. If you don't know what I'm talking
about, think about Pete Townshend spilling his blood in a fit of guitar windmills, or
Jerry Lee Lewis lighting his piano on fire. Not surprisingly, these are rock's most
memorable moments. It's awesome to watch a fellow mortal biting his tongue in the face of
the inevitable.
It's empowering.
When our legends die, their passing brings us back down to size. We remember we all have
to go sometime. And when our heroes die young, we remember death can take us at any
moment. And it can take us without any reason.
In this sense, I like to compare Jeff Buckley's innocent passing to that of Buddy Holly.
In today's world of "Behind the Music," we tend to fixate on the overdoses and
suicides while we overlook the tragedies that ended outside the realm of the "rock
and roll lifestyle."
Jeff Buckley was still a baby-faced singer when he stepped into the Mississippi River in
May of 1997 and was taken by the water's massive current. Sadly, he had only lived long
enough to record but one complete full-length album for his fans to mourn by.
His debut, the aptly named Grace, seems like a preface to a career that never
was. This is never more clear then when one takes the time to carefully admire the range
of the posthumously released Sketches for My Sweetheart The Drunk.
A year after her son's death, Jeff's mother put together this set, a collection of yet
complete studio recordings and four-track demos. In a very non-traditional sense, the
album stirs a myriad of feelings: frustration, sexual wanting, sadness, warmth and power.
Buckley still croons with his Van Morrison-like vocal improvs, set inside a Prince-like
falsetto. But his musical pallette varies from dark, angular jams to bright ballads.
Take the sexy strut of "Everybody Here Wants You," where Jeff brings Motown to
the 90s, and compare it to the Nirvana-inspired guitars of "Nightmares By The
Sea." Enjoy the bouncing, wicked pop of "Witches Rave" and the haunting a
cappella "You And I."
Get
emotionally zapped by "Opened Once," a sparse acoustic ballad where the singer
forshadows his own death with eery lyrics and flowing fingerpicking. Like most of the
tracks on Sketches, his voice is haunting in its beauty and alluring in its
complexity. He sounds hopeful at one point, only to become completely lost in the next
verse. At the song's close Jeff softly asks, "Did I ever happen?" Clearly, he
did.
Perhaps
a larger question is what might have happened had he survived his midnight swim. The
release's second disc offers us an endlessly compelling "sketch" of an
unfinished future, or at least an intersting look at the creative process of writing an
album.
Study
the four-track demos and explore step inside of the singer's mind. Try to imagine your own
favorite artist -- a young Bruce Springsteen or David Bowie -- and imagine them leaving
behind a handful of demos, with which you try to paint an entire career.
Who knows what Jeff Buckley would have become if he'd only lived long enough to record
five or six more albums? Maybe nothing. But with Sketches, he has provided ample
reason to celebrate his short existence.
