All language subtitles for music.box.its.never.over.jeff.buckley.2025.1080p.web.hevc.x265.rmteam

Jeff?

reaches people on such a deep level. I
think because he is like the essential

artist. It's raw, it's real, and his
voice is like an instrument in itself.

a poet for the ages, and it's a love
story that just continues on and on.

I've actually done my best to really not
think about this for 30 years, let

alone talk out loud about it.

Society has a weird view towards women
in these relationships.

There's so much misogyny. You're sort of
pigeonholed into this girlfriend or ex

-girlfriend or these roles, and you're
supposed to sort of be cut as a pathetic

figure.

I've gone as far from being an artist in
New York City as one can imagine, and I

think that is a lot because of his
death.

He heard the whole of his person in the

music.

Writing his second record was so
daunting.

It was a huge step forward for him.

But I haven't been able to listen.

That might sound crazy, but I can't.

I certainly was a flawed parent.

But he sure got me, you know, and he
thought exactly where I came from and

understood why I made the choices I made
in my life.

No one has ever loved me more or better

than he.

Every human being has music that only
they can make.

And it's my deepest form of
communication with people.

It'll always keep on changing.

It'll always defy anything that tries to
put people in a box.

This is our last goodbye.

There are things I want to

do that I've never heard of.

It's my life.

I just love when men use their voice so
unselfconsciously. I mean, he was

literally the best singer I've ever
heard.

And he was so amazed by what female
singers could do.

Feminine masculine, he was and is my
favorite.

When you really dig into the lyrics,
it's so sacred.

Him recognizing his own.

I guess you could call it mortality.

I want to be songwriter Jeff.

Jeff Buckley, songwriter.

He had a way of playing the most
beautiful song you've ever heard.

He could have literally been doing
anything musically that he wanted to do.

First time I heard Jeff sing.

Oh, he was in the bassinet.

One time I came in and I could hear him.
He was vocalizing

to the radio.

The day I heard Ain't No Mountain High
Enough.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I thought, ooh, yeah.

He's a singer.

Music charged my life.

A good childhood?

Uh, it was a childhood.

My mom's first generation, Panamanian
immigrant, very good girl, brought up

voodoo Catholic values, you know,
brought over to Anaheim, you know, that

hellhole in Southern California where
Disneyland is.

My parents had high

hopes for me.

You know, immigrant parents with their
eldest child.

I wanted to be an actress and sing and
dance and play the piano, but I had

soiled the family name and dishonored
them having premarital sex.

I met Timothy in French class.

He would do things like pull one hair on
my, right? And I would turn around and

he would be looking up.

We were two kids from abusive, crazy
homes, and we just knew the world better

than anybody else.

17 at the time, I was already a teenage
pregnant mom.

My parents thought maybe I should give
the baby up for adoption, but there was

no choice for me but to go through with
the pregnancy.

I knew from the fifth month that I was
never going to see Tim again.

First of all, he was with somebody else.

Plus, he was determined to be a singer
-songwriter.

This child was on me.

He split before I was born.

You know, you decided not to be a father
to me.

You don't serve your country, man. You
serve life. You serve people.

TV from the very beginning and also
public schools have been the great

lobotomizer.

Everything in the outer world is not the
world. Cars, how much perfume you wear.

The world is what's inside and what cats
pull out of themselves all through

time. I said to him, you gotta go pursue
your dreams. You go.

But...

My dreams of being an actress or being a
concert pianist, that was all gone.

Jeff and I sort of raised each other.

Well, his father wasn't there, but this
woman loved him with all her heart and

didn't hesitate.

to make him feel loved at every chance
he had.

He would come and put his little hands
on my face and say, we're going to be

okay, Mommy, right?

And I'd go, yes, we are, honey, we're
just fine.

He had to take care of her.

And he was feeling like she had been
hurt and feeling horrible about

that.

Perhaps it is the color of the sun
caught flat and covering

the crossroads I'm standing at.

Jeff was like having a grandfather
watching over me and telling me who was

to date and who wasn't. Mama, you've
been on my mind.

When I was a kid, I always felt really
proud if I could roll a joint for all

grown -ups at the party.

I never did it, but I always, I want to
do it, let me do it.

I now remember the day that my mom
called me over to the reclining chair

tried to explain to me that if I told
anybody that they did this stuff, they

would go to jail.

When Jeff was little, before I even

made coffee, music would go on.

Constant, constant, constant, constant.

Judy Garland, the man that got away.

I love that song.

And it was very important to him.

Music, always.

My stepfather, Ronald, who was a car
mechanic.

He was the one that introduced me to Led
Zeppelin.

And that changed my whole life.

Ron would turn the stereo on loud enough
to hold blocks in here.

And there would be little Jeff laying on
top of the speakers with his little

body vibrating to the music.

Music, it was my mother.

It was my father.

It's the best thing in my life.

I see in the newspaper this quarter
-page ad.

Tim Buckley made a name for himself as
one of pop music's genuine innovators.

Over the course of nine albums, He
incorporated the prettiest of folk

most extreme of freeform jazz, and the
raunchiest of rock and blues.

I thought, wow, maybe this is an
opportunity for my son to get to know

father.

I looked at Jeff and said, hey, would
you like to go see your dad perform?

Jeff was rocking to the music.

Looking up at his dad.

Tim had his eyes closed, but he had to
know he was there, had to be aware of

presence.

When he went back to the green room, I
looked down and said, you want to go see

him now?

I could feel Jeff clutching my skirt.

You know, kind of hanging on, pressing
close and looking around.

I couldn't see Tim at first, and then I
heard, Jeff!

Hi, bud, how are you doing?

Jeff sat on his lap, and he started
talking what his favorite color was, my

dog's name is King, what grade he was
in.

About ten minutes later, Tim said, we'd
like to take him home with us tonight.

Yeah, you can take him home right now.

But you better not fuck up.

I stayed with him a week.

He used to vacation.

He had an adopted son. He had a new
wife.

He had a whole other family.

Four days later, I got a telephone call.

Kim had to get back into the studio and
put Jeff on a bus in Santa Monica.

It was so much fun.

My dad has a lot of friends, and he gave
me this.

He said, you saved that buddy.

No calls were returned.

That was two months before.

I have a great deal of pain and anger,
but I have a great deal of love and

compassion.

For Tim.

Some things that he did completely
embarrassed me to hell.

But the things that were great hold up
against anything.

Jeff wasn't even mentioned in any of the
obituaries.

By the time I was in high school, I got
my first electric guitar.

It was a black Memphis, black Paul
Coffey.

Yeah, just fell in with the wrong crowd
and got a band together, of course.

Thank you.

15. Jeff was practicing algemiola every
night.

That was a fixation I had up until the
time I was maybe 16. And I can play

anything I hear.

My high school boy called me faggot. And
your fucking new age girlfriend sent

old geek on my fucking Ovation Viper
electric guitar case.

Jeff had an ability to mimic the vocal
cadences and the inflections of people

he was listening to.

It's an exact album.

Because, you know, a lot of people would
tune it down a step so they could hit

the note. This is the exact, it's album
pitch.

It's the same key.

I used to want to be a guitar
aficionado.

But the thing I was going to learn to do
best was songwriting.

Music and words.

I decided to make a woman of music and
give myself to her.

And at another point I decided to make a
man of music and give myself to him.

When you're a kid, people assume that
you have no mind of your own, which at a

very early age I did.

I put so many things onto music for me
so that I wouldn't shrink into a

black universe.

St. Anne's in Brooklyn wanted Jeff to
sing at a tribute to Tim.

I said,

no, I will never, ever perform that
music.

I got my own music.

I said, you know what, son?

Give it some thought. There's going to
be some really amazing artists being

lined up.

So I said, okay, but I just want to come
on and sing and come off.

This is not a springboard. This is
something really personal.

And they told me, well, we don't know
how good he is, so we'll put him with

other artists to fill in any gaps in his
talents.

Dangerous situations appealed to me.

There had been a bit of buzz that Tim
Buckley's son would be there.

I figured it wasn't the worst thing that
happened.

The luminaries of downtown were there.

This could be exactly what I dreamed for
him.

I didn't know who he was, and I'm
working, doing sound and lighting, but

so nervous. He was so, like, his hair
was just in front of his face, and he

seemed so awkward.

Long time ago, when I was a little kid,
my mom sat on a bed, and she put this

record on, and it had my father's voice.

He had on his father's coat, and he
started to play with Dad's song about...

leaving him as a child.

And he was weeping.

It did become Jeff's concert.

I was like, this can't be real.

He told me he walked away with no less
than 60 business cards in his pocket.

My friend said he heard Tim Buckley's
haunted voice.

It's not his voice.

And it's not my voice, it's the voice
that's been passed down through every

in the family.

He came out and sat next to me and said,
what do you think?

I was thinking, my opinion here does not
matter, but that was really stunning,

like just so beautiful.

He was asking if he could walk me to the
subway and get on the train with me.

And took it all the way into Manhattan
and we're talking and talking. And we

stayed on that train and we went all the
way up to the last stop.

Besides reading and movies, what I
really like is night prowling. Finding

the white places where the misfits go.

You're making me laugh so much.

Then we got in the downtown and we went
all the way to Coney Island and back.

so interested in what I did. It's really
surprised me because I was doing

experimental theater.

It was really less about money and fame
and more about pushing the boundaries.

Nobody I knew my own age was really
interested in any of that. But he was

someone who drank up the world like a
sponge.

You make me feel so young.

Thank you.

You make me feel like spring is coming.

I was in a play with Rebecca.

I was in high school, and Jeff just felt
very electric to me.

Jeff had a real lust for life.

The East Village at that time was such a
collection of every eccentric that did

not fit in anywhere else.

He saw so many people breaking down the
status quo.

Artists were being banned.

The NEA was being censored.

New York was the place for this amazing
stuff, stuff I can't even describe to

you.

Sometimes he would just disappear, and
I'd get a call from a friend later

Jeff showed up at my house today.

Every moment was so spontaneous.

He would make very elaborate.

outgoing messages like old -time radio
shows.

And now, the continuing adventures of
Spinach the Cat.

His most famous being Spinach the Cat.

And now your host, Preston Snubbery.

Jeff didn't have a job, so he had a lot
of time on his hands. Jeff used to look

specifically for Michael Bolton tapes so
he could put the piece of tape over the

top and record over it.

He would line up tape recorders because
there was no samplers. There was no

digital computer, nothing.

He basically created a little studio all
for the outgoing message.

Pressing this sound effect for when the
crowd cheers.

This sound effect when the cat meows.

It was an hour long.

And so people had to listen to this hour
long soap opera.

He asked me, do you think this part is
too much?

I thought the whole thing is too much.

Join us next time for the continuing
adventures of Spinach the Jack.

Girlfriend.

I love you.

I think Jeff had this desire to be liked
and loved and

to connect with people.

Jeff started calling me butterfly.

I think he saw me at that point of
coming out of a cocoon.

We were these two sensitive young souls
searching for where you fit in and feel

empowered and loved and found each
other.

But I called him the Scratchy Fish
because he was always not shaving,

very bristly.

And he started making these stories,
almost like children's stories.

This is Scratchy Fishy, this is their
home, and this is Butterfly, and they're

getting married.

The story he wove about a butterfly and
a fish was that they could never be

together.

You could see in his eyes that he would
sometimes go to this place that I think

was very inaccessible to anyone but
himself.

He just would check out.

I wanted to be a, you know, a chanteuse.

I think I wanted to be Nina Simone.

Although she would advise against it
strongly, I'm sure.

Sometimes.

I think I wanted to be.

He was my Elvis.

kid from Orange County covering Nusrat
Fatih Ali, Conor, Nina Simone.

You just have to give it up. He must
have been working his ass off.

There was a tiny little club in the East
Village called Sine.

You could probably fit in maybe 30 or 40
people at the most, and it would be

super, super crowded.

And Jeff was washing dishes.

He was serving people coffee, and then
every now and then, he would just get up

and play.

I'm a ridiculous person.

And you're lucky you've paid no money to
see me.

It was an Irish -run coffee shop.

It's a great little place to see
somebody in the raw.

This is a perfect place for music
lovers.

It's not like playing at a rock club.
It's not like playing at a hall.

It's a good place to get real. Turn it
up.

It was so homey in here.

It just smelled like espresso.

TV in the middle of some, like, ballad,
and you just hear that.

The Sinead community became a

place of such encouragement for him.

It really became a home where he could
experiment.

It's a fabulous time for a Guinness.

The brown liquor.

The buttocks of steel tour, Jeff
Buckley.

In the beginning, there were just a few
people.

Then, all of a sudden, it was like
packed.

It's like the seed finding song.

Crowds, you know, spilling out into the
street.

Everybody stop!

He was really an entertainer there, as
much as a musician.

By the way, all these songs are for the
lovers in the audience.

We mostly did covers.

And then he started introducing some of
the original material.

Went from laughing to jaw -dropping, you
know.

It's a song about a dream.

That was the first time I ever saw Jeff
Buckley at Sinead.

I

mean,

a pin could drop.

I wasn't thinking about being a music
executive. I was just a fan.

I

was

there

with Columbia.

I think we were all sort of stopped in
our tracks that night.

The whole record company, Gauntlet,
started infesting my gigs.

They were all there. People from
Elektra, Arista, Tony.

It was a bit of a cotillion, but that's
the way it goes.

We'd all heard so many nightmares about
large labels and lack of creative

expression. But I think he went into it
feeling like he'd been reassured that he

was going to get that.

I knew that I was just sitting there
with bated breath waiting for the new

Buckley to come up and pick up where his
father left off. I hated it. I couldn't

stand it.

Fucking bullshit.

What do you think you inherited from
your father?

People who remember my father.

Next question.

I went around and sampled record company
people to find where I fit in.

Jeff had a little bit of fear about the
fact that he didn't have more original

material. I wouldn't ever tell him what
to do, but I was like, go small.

I went to Sony.

Well, Columbia.

When you walk in, the first thing you
see is Bob Dylan.

On the wall, looking beautiful.

A foot away is Miles.

A foot away is Monk.

Duke Ellington.

Chambers Brothers.

Mahalia.

It was purely emotional. I was like, I
want to be here.

Columbia has such a storied legacy of
Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Bruce

Springsteen. What we all felt sitting in
that room was that he would one day be

in that Pantheon.

As a gentleman, you won't be able to
dictate anything to me. You're just

to make something I've never heard
before.

And the people that I settled with were
pretty fine with that idea.

He was told that it was like one of the
biggest deals an unknown person had ever

gotten.

He brought home the contract. It was
like 40 pages long. I'd never seen

like it.

It should have been just joy, but I
think suddenly things changed.

I would come home from work, and I'd
come up the six flights of stairs, and I

would get to the door and put my key in
the door, and I'd hear him stop.

Before the record contract, he would
sing and play for me all the time.

I said to him, do you need a place to
work?

The pressure to write songs and not be
interrupted was so intense.

I'm going to write a hundred songs.

In five weeks?

That means 20 songs a week.

He struggles with the lyrics.

I'm a horrible critic.

I'm my own worst critic.

He was obsessed with Morrissey and
Dylan, so he had a very high standard.

He didn't want to be known as the guy
who only does covers.

My hope had been that we would work on
the relationship and live together, but

he would find another space where he
could get this record contract

That was naive to hope because he moved
out completely.

People are like saying, look, I'll give
you all this money. Look, I'll be your

manager. Look, I'll be your agent. Look,
I got this place I want you to go to,

blah, blah, blah, blah.

I just want to make something special,
not even care about anything else, money

or prestige or a tour or nothing.

Try it again.

Coming up with a record's worth of
material with musicians and a producer

engineers waiting and everybody's
dependent on you.

You know, it's like tick -tock, start
making magic.

Let's try it again.

Come into my world.

My journals are the lyrics for the
albums.

Songs just come out of poems.

And sometimes poems come out of dreams.

There's a song called Grace.

It's basically a death prayer.

I always describe it as, you know, Not
fearing anything, anyone, any man, any

woman, any war, any gun, any fling or
arrow aimed at your heart by other

Because there is somebody finally who
loves you for real.

You can achieve a real state of grace
through somebody else's love in you.

Jeff would say, oh, we should bring
strings in on this song.

We had this idea to write interesting
backgrounds that fit the voice, actual

lines, you know, counter lines.

Carl came from the jazz world.

He was more appealing to Jeff than
somebody who does pop string

Britney Spears would call, and I'd say,
no, that's you calling the wrong person.

Jeff listened to Bill Evans.

He listened to Shostakovich.

Have you heard of any pop singers even
knowing who Shostakovich is?

It was the same way that Led Zeppelin
used orchestrations. Any orchestra

would have loved to have had their day
with Jeff to be able to just go to the

moon.

People who sing high lose power, and
Jeff actually gains power.

His range was like four octaves.

You think you're coming to a peak, and
then it goes one step further, and then

it goes another step further.

Grace is one of those songs that would
inspire me to pick up guitar and play,

and then I'd start to kind of find
something that made me feel like that

fail miserably at it. Put the guitar
back.

Jeff said, I want you to shoot my album
cover.

I had all the contact sheet, and Jeff
just went, boing.

That's it. That's the cover.

It's completely iconic.

He already looks like he's Sinatra.

The folks at the company didn't like the
glittery gold jacket.

Yeah, that's a little too effeminate.
And just like, you gave me creative

control. I choose that.

seven originals, three covers.

He made a record that no one else could
ever have come close to

making as a first record. It's uncanny.

Now it's like a legendary album.

People know me better for that than for
my own music.

putting it in the CD player in my car.

And I was overwhelmed with the mastery
and

the musicianship and the poetry and the

vocal performances were beyond anything

I had imagined.

He was capable of.

Boy, France, Australia, UK, huge.

Grace was huge.

It was a monster hit.

U .S., moderate.

As a child, I lived in Los Angeles.

I mean, you see people getting signed,
dreams totally inflated falsely.

I really admire artists allowed to fail,
allowed to be human, allowed to make

the most glorious dances they could ever
imagine and totally fall and get back

up because it's all human. But if you're
like this side of, you know, Danny

Partridge, it's like totally impossible.

It's the era of grunge.

And Jeff was a real counterweight to
that. He was part of this downtown New

scene.

Back then, Jeff defied genres.

Jeff tested boundaries.

Jeff challenged traditional male -female
roles.

So his music was not easy to fit into
the dozen radio categories.

And yet Jeff was also influenced by some
of the artists that came out in the

late 80s and early 90s in Seattle.

Soundgarden was playing in London.

And I don't think I quite realized what
a huge Soundgarden fan Jeff was.

Oh my goodness, this is where he could
be like a little...

you know, annoying brother. Like, you
have to take me.

I'm coming with you.

He just magically showed up one day, and
it was on.

It was a beautiful, beautiful friendship
between he and Chris.

There was a sense of mischief with this
almost soulmate understanding.

Chris Cornell does it really well. It's
like one of the few people I've met.

make his life work, his ordinary life.
Because without ordinary life, there's

art.

How would you like your fans to think of
you?

Just as, really, as a guy that's just
like a really good storyteller. Just

somebody who does a job that they enjoy.

Of course it was incredible that so many
people reacted to his music.

But the fame that went along with that
was not the fun part.

Even when he acted confident, it was
kind of an act. It was him channeling

bravely as a character, but I still
think that really insecure person was

there. Well, everybody's sensitive, but
sometimes men don't want to recognize

it.

I don't even want people to really think
of me as a face or a name or a body or

anything, just the music.

Because when I'm dead...

That's the only thing that'll be
allowed.

How he was being examined under a
microscope was so intense.

That quality he had to disappear in the
moment ultimately

amounted to not showing up where I was.

One night, he didn't come home. And this
was Valentine's Day.

By 3 or 4 in the morning, I was calling
hospitals around New York City.

And then he just sponsored in.

He had been out with friends.

Maybe I'm too young to keep good love
going

on.

But tonight... Hi, Rebecca.

9 o 'clock.

I fucking couldn't get into your show
because I got there too close to 8 o

'clock and I'm so disappointed.

I really want to see you.

Too young to hold on Too old to just

break free and run During his record
release party, I

had a backstage pass.

He'd handwritten my name on it.

His manager was at the door, and he
went, you can't go in now, sit over

Two hours went by.

I went to the door, and I turned the
handle, and I walked in, and it was a

mostly empty room.

They said Jeff left like over an hour
ago.

He must have gone out a back door.

The next morning, he was so apologetic
and really upset.

I felt resigned.

I didn't want to be an appendage. I
didn't want to be in his world if he

really want me there.

The hard

part about letting go was, like, I hope

he will have good people.

because he didn't have any self
protection.

Rebecca and him split just kind of
looked like a different person for a

There was a time when I was in New York,
and we spent some time together, and we

met at a bar, and this jazz band is
really loud, so it was impossible for us

talk.

We started...

writing each other messages.

For a lot of it, I think he was trying
to be seductive, but really not where

I wanted to go.

There was a very boundary -less kind of
liquid feeling to him.

He felt very desperate to self -medicate
with making this into a sexual

relationship.

I remember getting kind of frustrated
and writing, you need love, not sex.

Generally, I love to rush in there and
try to fix the broken guy, but that

liquid, watery quality just felt very
tidal wavy.

He was very hard on himself.

Like, sometimes I got the sense that he
felt that there were, Good and evil

forces, you know, I play within him

Music

I don't know it'll save you

Matt Johnson on drums.

Bass player Mick Grundle.

I'm Mick Grundle. And I'm Jeff Buckley,
and you're watching 120 Minutes on MTV.

He asked me to join the band, too.

Sometimes I think Jeff wanted me in
because I was a connection to Rebecca

those memories.

I think it was clear that Michael didn't
know how to play the guitar.

All right, there were two stops.

There were two stops. But...

It was about personalities. It was about
people.

I would have my amp really quiet. Jeff
would slowly turn it back up, you know,

and I'd get all tight.

He always told me not to be afraid of
the mistakes.

Don't use your brain the way you were
using it 30 seconds ago.

You know, in fact, don't use it at all.

Matt, in particular, was just so good at
following Jeff wherever Jeff was going.

That musical chemistry they had is very
hard to come by.

My name is Jeff Buckley. This is my
band, and this is our techie abode. On

outside, it looks like a huge black
phallus of death. So Velcro.

Clocks. He's like, okay, I want you.

Until I got sober.

Drugs and alcohol have been a big part
of my life, which we connected on

of, you know, his father's situation.

It's a huge cliche that, you know, bands
are like families.

but they are.

The infamous American Legion Hall
concert was the

first one that Jeff was in town since he
started the tour.

All of the relatives, the friends of the
relatives, the relatives of the friends

of the relatives all wanted to go to the
concert.

We filled the last two rows.

The Tasmanian devil of the pack showed
up and there was no beer

left. There was nothing left. Everything
was like wiped out before the show.

Let's just say that as soon as there was
an opportunity.

To become part of the inner circle of a
rock star was very attractive.

The promoters came to me and said, we
have a situation.

I go outside and I realize it's Jeff's
mother sitting in a car with one of

her girlfriends just smoking pot.

You know, hi, Jean, what's up? Hey,
well, Mary, listen, you got to, you

got to curtail this. You're going to get
arrested.

And I go back inside to tell Jeff that
the show is going to be canceled because

his mother is outside in the parking lot
smoking pot.

Hey, you know this?

This is your big sexy son.

I think you should really not like set
yourself up like that when you like

fucking light up a tube, light up a
fucking joint.

What? We're in the parking lot. It's
like over there. It's California.

No, no, no, no, no.

We ended up in Iowa City and opening up
for us were the Dan Builders and the

Grifters. My booking agent said Tim
Buckley's son, Jeff, who had taken New

by storm, was going to be on this tour
as the headliner.

Joan Wasser was one of the heavyweights
in the music world, being a tough -ass,

cool female coming up in the 90s through
the music scene.

Lots of power, lots of shiny, you know,
lots of shiny.

When I saw him, it was definitely a
vibe.

We were just sort of checking each other
out.

Jeff stood right in front of

me the entire show and watched me.

He was rocking a, like, I'm worshiping a
goddess vibe.

Not subtle.

Not subtle.

And then hearing him, the thing that I
thought of was, that's Nina Simone.

He sang the whole show to me.

It was like,

man, this guy really knows how to work
me right now.

I was feeling like...

Oh, I got this, and then being like, oh,
I don't got this.

This person is too powerful.

jockey guys were, like, making fun of
me. I had this very cartoony type of

so I was pretty used to that.

But Jeff leapt up and said, you wouldn't
know a woman if she slapped you in the

face. I was like, oh, God, that's so
romantic. I love it. And, like, fuck

I don't need defending.

But I came to learn that he was someone
who was a really...

daunch defender of women.

All people are sensitive, but his
sensitivity wasn't crushed

like some men's sensitivity has been.

It stayed intact.

You're talking about two amazingly
talented people who immediately

First thing I thought of, oh my God,
they're going to become a band and it's

just going to rule.

Jeff toured a lot. It was a slow growth

of that following.

We toured almost consistently for two
years.

What's life been like since Grace came
out? Work, work, work, work, work, work.

I gotta take them out!

His label.

They wanted him to be there.

And he was like, well, I have another
idea of what that means.

Being famous without content, that
really hurts me. He did get discredited

certain, like, cool musicians because of
the branding.

He was chosen to be in People magazine,
50 Most Beautiful People, or whatever

the hell that was called. The poor
relative, I think one of them walked up

him, look, Jeff, look what I've got. And
he took her Sharpie and just went.

We went to every newsstand and bought
every single one. Spent hundreds of

dollars so that no one would see it in
his neighborhood.

This entire show is dedicated to People
magazine.

It was becoming an increasingly
stressful environment.

You're very much a public person now.
How does that feel?

Well, I'm public with a camera, but I
don't like TV.

Why does your TV station want to know
about me?

Once we got to Europe, I remember we
felt a little sense of relief.

The album was doing better over there.

Radiohead came to a show in London and
was so inspired by Jeff that they left

the concert and went right to the studio
and recorded Fake Plastic Trees.

In Paris, we went to the opera and
walked along the set and went to every

that we could.

They fell in love with him, and who
wouldn't fall in love?

when you do justice to an Edith Pia
song.

What about Edith Pia?

What's your attraction to her?

Her sound, her voice. Her

sexiness, the romance, her

tragedy.

No one could rock like Jeff.

But once you knew Hallelujah,

God help you.

This

is

for Leonard, wherever you are.

And this is for Nina Simone.

The secret chord that David played and
it pleased the Lord.

But you don't really care for music, do
you?

Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the
fifth, the minor fall and

the major lift.

The Bible came composing.

We were both on the road.

You know, it's like so romantic, like
impossibly romantic.

But when we were together, we created a
space where

nothing was too scary to talk about.

We both needed that so badly.

And she tied you to her kitchen chair.

She broke your throne and she cut your
hair.

And from your lips she drew with
hallelujah.

Hallelujah. All right. Just get rid of
this.

You sit around and play your guitar all
day.

And you have a beautiful lady woman in
your bed.

Hallelujah.

That's true, I do.

The high school boys are undoubtedly
living a completely pathetic life.

We

felt

like we found the person that we felt
the most safe with.

Nothing was off limits.

We could just be free really for the
first time.

Hallelujah!

the connecting thread because you will
do a cover of bad brains or of the smith

or of edith piaf or probably my mindless
hero worship

this is jimmy page

and this is i'm robert plant and uh
we're at the 99th festival of the tour

europen and it's uh i don't care

We're at the U .S. Cannons Festival,
right?

Easy as that.

I don't think Jeff had ever seen the
page in Planet Live.

My main musical influences?

Love, anger, depression, joy, and
Zeppelin.

It was like he was going to Mecca or
something.

Next stage at the festival.

I felt something over my shoulder.

It was like heat.

And I turned around.

Jeff was walking towards me.

He put his hand on my shoulder. He said,
hey, I love your slide guitar playing.

Could you show me some slide guitar
stuff? And I said,

well, Jeff, you could probably show me
some slide guitar stuff.

He said, no, please, show me, you know.

And he said, hey, Page and Plant are
playing. When I get off, if we go

there, we'll make it.

We meet at the side of the stage, and we
were both really excited, obviously, to

see them.

After Jeff's show, I go around.

I'm in the pit.

We're looking for Jeff constantly.

We're trying to watch the show. We're
trying to look for Jeff.

We looked up.

They're just out of my periphery.

Oh, shit.

There's Jeff hanging all the way up off
the scaffolding.

Zeppelin is at full throttle, and Jeff
is with every decibel

coursing through his veins.

You could call it death to find.

The volume of music as it passes into
your body turns you into an instrument

that your own ears hear.

There's a great deal of comfort in the
same way that a baby's greatly comforted

by their mother.

He looked at us and gave us a wave,
like, said, like, come on up.

Like, the water's warm.

Music. It was my mother.

It was my father.

When he was back in New York, we went
and saw Nusrat play

at Town Hall.

After the show, we went backstage.

Nusrat is very, like, flaccid.

And here was this, like, bouncing around
Jeff.

Nisra did not speak any English, and
Jeff was trying to connect with him, and

then he just started... Oh!

Nisra,

like,

looked at him like...

This smile came on his face and it was
just instant respect and love.

That is the universal language.

I didn't only just listen to things. I
totally, absolutely lionized everybody

having anything to do with it.

Some of Jeff's heroes eventually became
fans of him.

I was at a show at Roseland where Paul
McCartney and Linda McCartney came, and

it was just amazing. There's this one
shot where he's looking at me going,

can you believe it?

But some of the heroes also recognized
his father's work as well.

I thought it was difficult for him
because, like, Linda McCartney knew his

father better than he did.

In these situations, I'm hoping that I'm
understood.

But with comparisons, I'm not
understood.

I have my own way.

Jeff would buy all of Tim's CDs at Tower
Records, listen to them, and then throw

them out.

Led Zeppelin was being inducted in 95
into the Rock and Roll Hall

of Fame.

I've never seen Jeff so starstruck.

And he just started pointing.

You're the one that's been in my head
all these years.

It's you.

At one point during the evening, Robert
Plant said something to Jeff like,

you're the greatest new singer in the
world.

It freaked Jeff out. He turned white.

Got up. I don't know what he did, where
he went, but he was missing for like two

days.

I noticed Jeff's depression started to
kick in.

Your mailbox is full.

There was so much on his mind, but he
wasn't talking about it.

And he just felt heavy.

We all, like, experimented with taking
drugs and stuff.

It was sometimes a bit crazy, but, like,
I never got, like, an addict vibe from

him at all.

Yeah, there was dipping and dabbling and
stuff, some more than others.

But I couldn't be around it.

Next year, then, will that mean a new
Jeff Buckley album?

I have to work on it this year, so
something will be out.

No, you know what? I can't make any
promises now.

I'll be a corpse by then.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Buckley. It's
a great... Thank you, sir.

I feel like as his fame grew, the
demands of success started to irritate

The label was kind of breathing down his
back for this second album.

I think he was weighed down by the debt
that he owed them.

millions of dollars in debt with no hits
on your next record yet.

Well, you're never going to get out of
the hole.

No one ever gets out of owing a record
label money because that's how it's

structured.

That probably would have been very scary
to Jeff, and maybe he

thought that the type of deal that he
had may have been a little bit of a deal

with the devil sometimes.

That's your bed, and you made it, and
you have to lie in it.

Jeff started to spiral around this fear
that he has of the loss of his artistic

freedom.

Columbia Records meetings would be very
full of pressure, you know, when Jeff

didn't want to do something.

Every parasite needs its host, and we
are them. I'm Jeff Buckley. And I'm

Michael Tai. And we've been guest
parasite hosting tonight.

The label wanted the next record to come
out, but they were still touring.

Make another album, please.

Oh, my God.

You've taken your time, haven't you? I
mean, you haven't rushed into recording

the follow -up album.

Only because of being on the road so
long. Do you anticipate that it's going

take months and months? If it takes any
longer, you'll find me swinging from the

news.

Get in the van, eight hours a day, every
day.

We're like two and a half years, bro.

Like, can I just have some fucking
faith?

Then, I was nuts.

I was fucking nuts.

And the last thing I need is another nut
motherfucker next to me.

You could really feel the disconnect
between Jeff and Matt.

And I think Jeff felt like he was being
abandoned by a brother.

So Matty quit the band, said he was
done.

I myself am erratic.

Music is erratic. If people look upon
music as something to have control over

something to be uniform and predictable,
then it's their funeral.

I'm going to come home.

I'll record, definitely. I just want to
come home and experiment and get all

these ideas out.

Where would you like to see yourself in
10 years, 10 years from now?

I don't see myself 10 years from now at
all.

I just don't.

Just a blank movie screen.

Just a void.

What can I tell you?

I heard Grace in the summer of 96, and
within two weeks, I would

meet Jeff.

We need a drummer we love.

Come try out.

Jeff had so much fear around this
record.

He wasn't ready.

He's questioning everything.

Was the first album a fluke? Am I an
imposter?

Grace was a compilation of everything
that he had done until he was 27.

You wonder, do I have another record in
me? Do I need another 27 years?

Then you had the record company guys
coming down to check in on us.

see our progress and was like, are you
kidding me?

We wanted to be able to supply the
inspiration that would get him to the

level, but I think he felt he had to do
that on his own.

many of the people he admired had
somehow self -destructed.

People think that my father and the EPA
is all there to talk about.

And then to have Jeff come from a father
who had died young, he was really

trying to be healthier.

On his 29th birthday, Jeff turned to me
and said, I've now outlived my father.

It was a really strange...

reality for him in the face.

He said, I have to tell you something
about me.

I'm not going to last that long.

I just have to tell you what it feels
like because I want to warn you.

And I said, I'm not going anywhere.

And because of his father dying,

I thought, of course you think that.
That makes all the sense in the world.

At the end of three years of touring,
who do you know?

What sort of life do you have?

It's a little corrosive and a little
frustrating.

And that's why I have to go away.

I have to find some place and really
think into it.

Jeff found this house on Rembert Street.

He didn't have a lawnmower, so it became
overgrown.

I would visit him for a week, a month.

I remember lying with him in the grass.

No one could see us.

Joan had said to me, take care of Jeff,
keep his feet on the ground, and I took

that seriously.

There seemed to be some normalcy, some
grounding.

Cooking. Some cooking, food.

And I feel that Jeff came here where
there's not as much external stimulation

order to process.

not just to create.

Without ordinary life, there's no art.

Balanced meals, reading, sleeping,
relationships.

Love.

It felt like he felt safe there.

He would wear my dresses in the house
sometimes and loved wearing them.

He just wanted to be anonymous and be
able to talk to anybody in the

not worrying if they were talking to him
because they knew who he was.

I went to pick him up, and he was
crying.

I said, do you want to talk about what's
going on? And he said it had to do with

his mom.

Yeah, well, one day I went to visit a
friend in Los Angeles.

I didn't have Internet at the time.

And she had a computer, and I'll sit up
with her. She said, oh, do you know,

here's a chat room all about Jeff.

So I sat there and read some of the
comments, and they were just a bunch of

bullshit.

So I said, hi, I'm his mom. I want you
to know none of that is true.

Well, that did not go over well.

It got back to his manager that I was,
you know, dealing with the fan club and

saying things that he didn't want me to
say, et cetera, et cetera, and he got

really pissed at me.

Oh, yeah, Mama, you've got to fucking
grow up, all right?

He can't be a girl anymore, Ma. He's got
to be a woman.

I had to be the man.

I had to be the man in your house.

Just get the anger and the pain that was
rested upon you to get rid of that

shit.

Because that's in me.

Everything you experienced at home, it's
in me.

And that's how I know how to hurt
people.

We've never had a falling out.

And it was serious.

And we didn't spend Christmas together
that year. He went to Northern

and spent it with his stepdad.

Jeff got real serious and turned, took
my hand, looked down, very

dejected, and said very quietly, I don't
know how to be a man.

He was looking at who raised him and
formed his ability to

deal with life on a day -to -day basis.

He was looking for answers, really, from
a ghost, from his father.

And I've caught on foreign sounds for
you.

Jeff could shift gears, though, very
quickly.

His mind worked like a radio that was
tuned to all frequencies at once.

How you doing?

Hi.

He said, I realized something.

I think I'm manic depressive.

I didn't know what that meant. I thought
immediately of the Jimi Hendrix song.

We just, I didn't, and nobody did then.

He was in a really heightened state and
was having really disturbing visions,

like visiting the devil.

He took me into the attic. There was a
dead bird laying on the floor and his

black skull candle.

He sent a fax to the office, and he's
like, I got the cover for the next

We comment, and this is too X -rated. We
can't send this to Sony.

He said that he dreamed he had a brain
tumor, and he thought that he was going

to die.

It was what I understand now to be a
psychotic break.

The same thing was going on with Hendrix
and Joplin and Martin.

chemical imbalance mixed with some sort
of trauma that's only sustainable for so

much time until either it gets fixed or
it fixes you.

I'll never forget, he always said, I'm
not going to end up like my father with

tag on my toe.

Jeff had gone to the zoo numerous times
and loved the butterfly house.

But he felt like the guy working in the
butterfly house was mistreating the

chrysalis.

He felt he could be more gentle.

The last conversation we had, he woke me
up with a phone call.

He was wanting to clarify the past.

He was apologizing.

I remember saying, it takes two, you
know.

to mess things up the way we did, and
it's all good.

He said he was doing work on his
childhood and that they were looking for

someone to help him, presumably a
counselor.

I'm going to work my ass off, baby.

I'll see you on the other side.

For like two weeks, he, like, called
everybody he knew just to, like, have

contact.

I remembered him calling me and saying,
I realized that you were right about

stuff, and, you know, I wasn't even sure
what he meant by that, and I didn't

know how to follow it up, and it's sad.

Jeff was very quiet and didn't say
anything.

I told him I loved him.

I said to him, I

have photos of you from your childhood.

Would you like me to send them to you?

And like in a really soft voice, he
said, I'd like that.

I said, you just got to let go and not
care if mistakes

are made.

Barristers became his second Sinead of a
kind, where

he could go and work out music without
having

the entirety of, say, New York City find
out about it.

I have been everything on stage.

I've been wrong. I've been completely
ugly. I've been stupid. I've been...

Angry I've been totally in love. I've
been beautiful. I've been hideous.

I've lost my pants But I've never been
bored I've never been dead

on thing I've never been dead He

left my answering machine Michael
starting to click it starting to feel

way the gray song felt

He hadn't played anyone, any of it.

His band was joining him really soon to
start recording the record.

Sometimes a song gets into you and just
gets into you.

It just happens to you in a moment.

Me, Michael, and Mick each got a four
-track tape.

I could feel that those songs had come
from a very pure place.

He was doing it all on headphones.

I said, Jeff, you could get speakers and
it would fill the room.

He got where he needed to go.

He's like, I want to open up a bank
account, buy this house, and I want to

car.

He was really happy and having so much
fun.

Jeff was supposedly on their way to the
rehearsal space.

He was with the guitar tech, Fody.

They ended up going down to Wolf River.

It was typical Jeff.

He thought, oh, it's so beautiful, I'm
going to go in fully clothed.

No one swims down there. It's muddy.

I don't know about currents. There were
boats.

He was listening to a whole lot of love.
Why?

Led Zeppelin.

Love, anger, depression, joy.

And Zeppelin.

He probably went in the water as soon as
we hit the tarmac.

We got to the house, and it was kind of
in disarray.

I kept thinking I was going to hear this
green door squeak open in the back and

slam, you know?

And then he'd come to the kitchen, and
we'd be like, oh, and he'd be like,

what's up?

Gene picks up the phone, and...

Just said, let's go.

I thought he just swam across.

It was very quiet and peaceful down
there.

The sun's setting. You know, it's going
to be dusk.

Now there's like helicopters.

I picked up the phone and said, hello,
and someone said, this is Memphis Police

Department.

And I said, I'm coming.

The car pulled up in front, and it was
Sergeant Mary Grace Johnson

of the Homicide Department.

And she said, you know, we have to have
the sunshine.

Because that'll bring the body.

If we want to find him.

I was sitting in his attic two or three
days after he went into the river, and I

just remember breathing in, and my
breath, like, just kept going in. Like,

I just, I had, like, the biggest
inhalation that I've ever had, and I

like, my lungs puffing up with air and,
like, my spine straightening, you know.

And something switched in me, and I...

Kind of felt like he was gone.

Singer -songwriter Jeff Buckley's body
finally surfaced late Wednesday

at the foot of Memphis' famed musical
corridor, Beale Street.

As a friend watched helplessly from
shore, Buckley disappeared under the

a passing boat.

The irony wasn't lost on anyone that a
man who lived for his music would be

found dead at the foot of Beale Street
where he'd performed before.

I was in Texas visiting family.

I was staring at Bray's Bayou, watching
the water.

That was the same time when Jeff died.

It was more than I could bear.

It

was an

undertow. The Army Corps of Engineers
had actually specifically dug that

area out to keep it clear of debris, so
it dropped off.

Obviously, being fully clothed and
weighted and out there for about 20

plus an undertow, his drowning made
sense.

Hallelujah, hallelujah,

hallelujah, hallelujah.

The autopsy report said he had a beer in
his system. That's it.

Rolling Stone to please publish the
report to show that drugs had nothing to

with it.

But the shame is that the story was very
sensationalistic. It was very much

like, well, we don't know.

And unfortunately, I can't tell you how
many people I've ran into in the last 20

-something years who are like, oh yeah,
he died of drugs, or oh, he followed in

his father's footsteps.

Jeff was one of the greatest singers of
all time.

I

didn't fully

comprehend how dope he was when he was
alive.

It was my first band, and he was my boy,
and everything just felt natural.

It was a perfect example of, you know,
youth is wasted on the young.

He had said, you should come out to
Memphis. It's beautiful here.

And I said, when your record's done, I'd
really love that.

We were so young.

Like, you know, all of those things that
felt so urgent and scary,

those fall away.

And, you know, I would have loved to see
him have

those things fall away.

Mom, you know, anybody can be famous,
baby.

Anybody can be fucking famous, baby. But
it takes a real spirit.

You hear me?

It takes a real spirit to raise a kid.

And he brought me into the world.

Yeah.

Thank you, everybody.

Good night.

You were beautiful.

Thanks a lot. I love you.

Why do you think I did not all this with
love?

Like I kissed you, lines of escape in
my...

I am your fail.

I'm your contender. I'm your long shot.
Come on, please.

Stream you with an arm.

There's a world too many explosions.