The heartbreaking song Jeff Buckley wrote hours after his album deadline had passed
As ever in rock lore, the unfortunate romanticism that can shroud a star’s young death often pushes their work into commercial favour and critical adulation unseen in their lifetime.
Jeff Buckley was another such case. While the famous folk father’s surname undoubtedly helped, Buckley forged a distinct reputation in New York’s East Village venues in the early 1990s, conjuring a unique blend of soulful alternative rock that caught the attention of Columbia Records, signing him in 1993.
While his take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Corpus Christi Carol’s’ stirring spirituality seem like immortal standards today, Buckley’s 1994 debut album Grace didn’t create much of a splash upon its first release, peaking only at 149 on the Billboard 200, to considerable label underwhelm.
It would take his tragic death three years later to cement Grace’s eternal fascination, fatally drowning in Tennessee’s Wolf River while recording his follow-up, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Soon enough, the world’s music press would declare Grace one of the finest albums ever made, and would count everybody from David Bowie to Jimmy Page as fervent fans.
Recorded in Woodstock’s Bearsville Sound Studio, Buckley and album engineer Cliff Norrell had worked up to the nth minute to complete the album, technically having exceeded their deadline to submit Grace for final mixing and mastering.
Reaching into his bag of song sketches, Buckley pulled out a piece he’d been working on concerning the anxieties he held over his friend, Fishbone keyboardist Chris Dowd, and the private confessions he’d had wishing to leave his pregnant girlfriend, echoing the troubled and unreconciled feeling towards his celebrity father’s similar walk away from parenthood.
“It’s a song about a friend of mine, who’s led a rather excessive life… He is in trouble,” Buckley put it bluntly to OOR in 1994. “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.”
Having worked out the choruses previously in jam sessions, there were still gaps in the piece that lyrically needed filling. On the last night of the Grace sessions, Norrell’s push to complete the track prompted Buckley to feverishly finish the remaining number. “He asked me what time it was, I said ’11:00 PM’, and he said, ‘OK, I’ll meet you back here at 1:00 AM!’,” Norrell told Uncut. “He returned on time and sung the verses a few times and really nailed it. I realised he probably written those verses during the couple of hours he was out of the studio.”
Featured as the final song on Grace’s original issue, ‘Dream Brother’ would stand as a fan favourite and take on extra life as an anchoring title and theme across his work and short life. Grace’s pensive cover is a snap of Buckley listening to a playback of his ode to the anguished Fishbone friend, and in 2006, a covers album featuring work from both Jeff and Tim Buckley would be duly titled Dream Brother as an effort to capture their sensitive and ethereal musical aura.
