The 10 most underrated Jeff Buckley songs
Tragically passing at the age of 30, the world never got to know what Jeff Buckley might have done next. However, what he left behind was enough to build a timeless legacy. His debut album, Grace, remains one of the most beloved records ever made. Yet, despite his modest catalogue, there are still some great tracks that have gone underappreciated.
Tracks like his cover of ‘Hallelujah’ or his emotive ballad ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ have rightfully joined the world’s songbook as two broadly loved and revered works of art. Buckley is respected not just as a truly great songwriter but as an incredible vocalist. In any list of the greatest singers of all time, he’d surely be in the running—his vocal range allowed him to soar to breathtaking heights while also diving into the depths of rich, velvety emotion.
From heavier rock songs to angelic ballads, it seemed like he could do it all. No doubt, with more time, he would’ve continued to prove that as the leftover tracks that would make up the posthumous release Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk tell of the potential to come and the way his talent would have evolved.
But despite only having one officially released studio album and a scattering of other compilations, live recordings and demo tracks, there are still songs amongst that modest collection that have fallen under the radar, never getting the praise they deserve. While the big hitters steal the spotlight, these 10 songs deserve and demand more attention.
The 10 most underrated Jeff Buckley songs:
‘Once Opened’
Just before his death in 1996, Jeff Buckley was working on a new album. It was destined to be truly something special, following up the iconic Grace with the next chapter in his artistry. With the team involved as well, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk was set to be a masterpiece with Television’s Tom Verlaine on production duties.
Buckley passed before the record could be fully finished, polished, and released. But in 1998, the tracks that were completed were packaged and released as a posthumous album—and thank God they were. ‘Once Opened’ is one of its most beautiful offerings: soft, angelic, featuring gorgeous guitar tones and even more gorgeous harmonies from a singer who had so much more to offer the world.
‘Sky Blue Skin’
Buckley’s estate has been incredibly protective of his legacy. No doubt there is, somewhere, a huge archive of demos and songs that never got released, but his team have been very careful about what is shared and what isn’t, knowing what Buckley would be proud for the world to hear and what was too rough and unfinished.
‘Sky Blue Skin’ was shared somewhat recently. Recorded during his final-ever studio session, it’s haunting. It’s almost funereal as Buckley sings, “I already see the ghosts on the sidewalk/Kissing in the hereafter.” It’s a stunningly simple recording, once again displaying his sharp songwriting and ever-beautiful vocals, but it’s the prophetic lyricism here that makes it so morbidly magnetic as he says, “That’s all. That’s all it is,” in the final seconds of the recording, and the final clip ever captured of his talent.
‘Nightmares By The Sea’
While Grace is often best celebrated for its emotional ballads, the sound of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk suggests he was starting to move in a different direction. In his final years, Buckley collaborated with Patti Smith and began working with Verlaine, two key figures in the punk movement. He was also witnessing the beginnings of grunge, and that’s heard on these tracks.
‘Nightmares By The Sea’ is a prime example of this potential new sound. It’s heavier, angsty, and gloomier. It’s more of an outright rock song, with Buckley’s pretty vocals contrasting with a rougher instrumental.
‘Forget Her’
To claim any song on Grace is underrated feels bold, but somehow, ‘Forget Her’ is. Often forgotten in the shadow of ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’, people forget about what may just be Buckley’s finest lyrical bridge and one of his finest vocal performances.
“Well, my tears falling down as I try to forget / Her love was a joke from the day that we met,” he nearly enough screams in the song’s big, emotional breakdown. It’s one of the ultimate examples of Buckley’s unrivalled ability to convey so much feeling in his voice, as his incredible vocal range allowed him to stretch to so many different places, styles and sounds, moving in a moment from the song’s downtrodden verses to this moment of impassioned bitterness and devastation.
‘Everybody Here Wants You’
In the competition for the sexiest song ever written, this has to be up there. Realistically, with a voice like that (and even more realistically, with a face like that), Jeff Buckley never really had to try that hard to be in the running. But in the simplicity of ‘Everybody Here Wants You’, he taps into something so intoxicating.
Who knows what it is? Maybe it’s the instrumental groove of the song, seemingly taking inspiration from classic slow jams with its rich bassline and drums. Maybe it is simply Buckley’s vocals as he plays in his upper register, showing just how much crooners like Nina Simone inspired him. Maybe it’s the coming together of both those parts with the song’s perfectly done guitar lines, all produced to perfection by Verlaine. Either way, it’s golden and primed to be added to some NSFW playlists.
‘All Flowers In Time Bend Toward The Sun’
To a cult of fans, this song is in no way underrated. For me, that YouTube video demo leak has gone absolutely triple platinum, as it’s been on rinse and repeat for years. But as the song has never, and likely will never, get an official release, it’s still unknown to many.
Between 1994 and 1995, Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins fell completely, head over heels in love. “This is embarrassing, but it’s the truth. I just couldn’t help falling in love with him. He was adorable,” Fraser said about the experience as they inspired and utterly adored one another. ‘All Flowers In Time Bend Toward The Sun’ was the result of a stunning duet between the two, capturing both of their incredible talents in a moment of shared tenderness.
‘Yard Of Blonde Girls’
Another prime example of the grungier direction Buckley was seemingly wandering into. ‘Yard Of Blonde Girls’ doesn’t really feel like one of his songs at all. It sounds like the work of Nirvana or some other angsty band as its powered by chucking guitars building to these rockier choruses.
But it is Buckley. It’s proof of where his talent might take him next, refusing to rest on his laurels and refusing to simply rely on his pretty voice and ballads. As he and Verlaine collaborated, these types of tracks seemed to be pouring out of him, with this era of his artistry sadly robbed from fans.
‘What Will You Say’
There is no official recording or even a demo of ‘What Will You Say’, but that’s part of its beauty. On Spotify, there are years worth of live recordings of it, each tracking the development of the song as it seemed to be being written night by night during Buckley’s live shows.
Written by Christopher Dowd of Fishbone and drummer Carla Azar, their collaboration also speaks to Buckey’s adamance to evolve as he was peers with so many incredible musicians and seemingly always keen to collaborate. No doubt, the live recording of this song would’ve been huge as the live takes already sound like one of the biggest tracks in his repertoire.
‘Dream Brother’
Once again, putting a Grace song on this list feels bold, but still, ‘Dream Brother’ deserves more praise – always. Even if you tried to argue that this is a huge song in his catalogue, it still doesn’t come close to the level of love and respect that a song like this deserves when you dive into the layers of lyrical meaning here and the sheer importance of this song.
As a kid, Buckley was abandoned by his father – musician Tim Buckley. The oddness of being the estranged child to a star and then trying to start a career in the same industry despite having no leg up, no connection and no relationship to the man the world would always compare you to led to a strange complex in Buckley’s world. ‘Dream Brother’ is his opus, and one of the only direct dealings he had with his feelings towards his father. As one of his friends threatened to do the same thing, running off away from his child, the song is Buckley’s stern words for him; “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.”
‘Morning Theft’
‘Morning Theft’ is one of those songs that is so specific and feels so personal that it feels like you’re intruding somehow. Jeff Buckley had a magical way of doing that. His songs were always imbued with such vivid imagery that was codified with rich emotion. He never once had a need for cliche when he could make even the most alienating scene feel universal, simply through his talent for wording or the emotion held in his voice.
It’s a song that gets more and more beautiful line by line. As the song builds, the emotions only grow with it as he dances around this tricky feeling of knowing love isn’t right but loving a person so much anyway, knowing you need to split but always wanting to be close. Finally dropping all the metaphors and imagery for one concise line, he croons simply, “I miss my beautiful friend”, as the simplest but one of the most gorgeous lines he ever penned.
