Further Listening (Jeff Buckley)
Some essential tracks from Jeff Buckley, the main featured artist on this week's music history round-up (plus, a song by one of his influences)
‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ from Grace (1994)
Earlier this year, ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ became Jeff Buckley’s first US Hot 100 hit single after going viral on TikTok. It is also his no.1 most streamed song on Spotify.
The seventh track from his sole studio album, Grace (1994), ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ is sandwiched between two covers, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘a song about sex, about love, about life on earth’1 according to its writer, Leonard Cohen, and ‘Corpus Christi Carol’, originally a Middle Age English hymn about a wounded knight with a maid weeping at his bedside. In 1933, the text was used in a choral composition by Benjamin Britten.
Looking at the lyrics of ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ and ‘Corpus Christi Carol’ next to each other, you can see how Buckley might have been inspired by the Middle English hymn. The similarities in language and sensibility - ‘My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder’ and ‘All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter’ from ‘Lover’ - help ease the audience into the historical text of ‘Corpus Christi Carol’.
It’s never over
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It’s never over
All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her
It’s never over
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ by Jeff Buckley
And in that hall there was a bed,
It was hanged with gold so red.And in that bed there lies a knight,
His woundes bleeding day and night.By that bedside there weepeth a may,
And she weepeth both day and night.‘Corpus Christi Carol’
While some of Buckley’s lyrics in ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ appear to be come from a different time, the subject itself was very much in Buckley’s present, namely his disintegrating relationship with girlfriend Rebecca Moore.
‘I wrote this song while lying listening to the telephone in my apartment,’ Buckley told his audience in Italy in 1995. ‘But she never called.’2
For more Jeff Buckley, check out this week’s music history round-up where I celebrate just over three decades of his only complete studio album, Grace…
