Treasures

I remember when I discovered Jeff Buckley. It isn't as vivid as I thought it would be but I remember the year - 1995. It was on a late night US Billboard show that had this VJ called Nonie (remember her?) doing the show. They introduced a fast riser - some red hot thingie - who was storming up the charts. A then relatively unknown Canadian called Alanis Morisette. It was her single You Oughtta Know. Well at that time I thought this banshee wasn't all that impressive but my opinion of her has since changed.

But what really caught my eyes, or ears, as it were, was how the show will also highlight some of the precious gems in the top 100 chart that deserves more attention. And that was when Jeff Buckley came on, introduced as the son of Time Buckley. The song was Last Goodbye.

The guitar introduction must have done it for me. And when he laments that "You know you make me so angry, cause I know that in time, I can only make you cry, this is our last goodbye.", he became my ideal teenage forsaken lover figure. Here was a man that was addressing to all and sundry, anyone who would listen that love does not conquer all. A romantic notion that if it's easy, it ain't love.

Perhaps that is why I like Antony and Johnson's Cripple and The Starfish so much. "It's true I always wanted love to be hurtful. It's true I always wanted love to be filled with pain and bruises.".

Jeff Buckley drowned on 29 May 1997. The day when the news came out in Straits Times Life! Section I came to remember it clearer than I thought I would. It was the first time my then girlfriend came over to my place. We were reading the papers and dad was in the kitchen reading his.

I still keep the newspaper clipping inside the cd album jewel case.

And to that, I'd say "Oh maybe I'm too young, to keep good love from going wrong.".

Jeff Buckley would go on to inspire bands that I totally enjoy listening to now. Chris Martin of Coldplay, Thom Yorke (the recording of Fake Plastic Trees was done after Thom had returned from Jeff's concert), Rufus Wainwright, Duncan Sheik, Starsailor, the list goes on and serves only as a perfunctory reminder.

Does anybody listen to Suddenly, Tammy!