Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas
Songs To No One 1991-1992

If Jeff Buckley had never been born, any talented visionary writer should have invented him in a novel. If Jeff Buckley had never been born, any underground director should have used all his romantic imagination to transfigure into fiction a legend that never existed. If he had never been born, my soul would now be poorer, and I would never have tasted the flavor of love, materialized in the hands of the one who placed it in me for the first time - oh marvelous coincidence that changed my life - the one who now places other jewels in the hands not mine.

"Do you know Jeff?"
"No. I don't think so. Who is he?"
"You know... you'd like him... your sad eyes don't lie."

Oh, those hands brought me many other joys, but the first joy was "Grace," and it was 1997. And my heart spoke to me of her. And both did not lie, almost everything happened: I fell in love with her and adored what she gave me that day. But about something she lied: my eyes have never stopped being sad, and perhaps it is destiny. Besides, memories, whether sweet or bitter, always make you suffer.

Now, I happen to have in my hands—alas—the latest release by mother Guibert, and it's titled "Songs To No One," and on the cover, Jeff shares it with Gary Lucas, a more than respectable musician, a fine and eccentric guitarist in one of the many incarnations of the Captain Beefheart band and moreover frontman of Gods and Monsters, an art-rock group of which I had heard great things, among whose ranks were listed characters of the caliber of Matthew Sweet and shady figures coming from equally shady and unbalanced lists (Swans, Modern Lovers).

Alas, I feared having to face this burden too; I had crossed paths with it many times and many times my heart had jumped, but I have always hated posthumous works, cruel apocrypha on tombs asking for nothing but rest, pathetic attempts to keep a fire alive long extinguished, untimely apology of memory.
But I listened to it, and I feared it. Fans might find bitter and wonderful suggestions here in a version of "Mojo Pin" recorded at the Knitting Factory in New York, when Jeff was still a beardless artist far from fame; two versions of "Grace" - the first a demo close to the original - but enriched by a harmonica later abandoned in the sessions of the album that will come; a "Hymne à l'Amour" of massive proportions, ethereal and sulfurous; a "Satisfied Mind" that would later see the light in the posthumous record. A stunning "Malign Fiesta," with its guitars in the foreground and the exquisite melody; a "How Long Will It Take" sweet and languid, a profusion of cascading notes before the rain, and the voice - and what a voice! - weaving grains of tears.

Now, I don't know what an ordinary fan might find interesting in this work. I cried, and that's exactly what I wanted to tell you. But this is a feeling all mine, and unfortunately, what can I do if every breath of this boy is golden glitter for my never-satiated limbs? In short, I would be biased, and I don't know what to do. I adore shooting stars, whether they are called Nick Drake or Syd Barrett. Those that rise, rise, and then explode into a thousand colored confetti, which are up to us to collect.
Jeff Buckley was the last of the romantics: son of a musician of immense talent who died of an overdose; emerging from the underground after an outstanding performance at a tribute concert to his father; a handful of songs of lacerating beauty; unexplained death, in the bloom of youth and hope, when merciless time marked the end of the myth.

Here, it is these kinds of people that make my heart, if not happy, at least alive. These kinds of people, like him, who cradle me in memories, and like her, who is part of the memories.