The Buckley Legacy - Sins of the Fathers

An Evening at the Buckleys'

So, Ki and I have been talking about this idea to write something different for Father’s Day, somehow celebrating the occasion.

We (rather, I) thought about going with Queen’s “Father to Son”, or maybe Cat Stevens' (beg your pardon, Yusuf Islam) rendition on the subject.

We decided on the Buckleys.

Ki is and has been for many years a major fan of Jeff while I, on the other hand, have always favoured the father. Not making this a “review”, because that is really not the point, we just wanted to write a couple of words on this iconic father-son duo (biologically, at least), what their music makes us feel and how, through the years, we keep coming back to them, even if in such a low profile and humble article such as this.

So, let’s begin.

Tim Buckley – Sins of the Fathers

Right from the start, it’s quite incredible to think that Tim was only 28 when he died. Listening to any of his songs (really, any, just take your pick) you just feel like you’re listening to the eldest of souls; it’s both inspiring and haunting, it moves you within and takes you places without. There is a deep, uncanny feeling that somehow rises from his voice without time, and the sheer strength on the expression of his singing makes, at least, for a very, very emotional experience.

When paired with Tim’s ability to create and craft complex melodies, what we get is, in my humble opinion, one of the best troubadours ever to have lived.
Many people know him from This Mortal Coil’s “Song to the Siren”, but he is much, much more than that.

However, you can’t make such an impact without a good dose of tragedy.
Catharsis never comes cheap and it takes a bucket-load (a “buckley-load”?) of skeletons in the closet, under the bead and inside your head to be able to conjure up the most inner of demons. And that he does. I will not go into detail on Tim Buckley’s life: it’s on Wikipedia, everyone’s favourite knowledge repository, the go-to tool in today’s world and time of information. But trust me when I say: it wasn't easy being Tim Buckley, it cannot have been.

Between an abusing father, failed, tumultuous relationships, growing addictions, moments of pure confrontational and aggressive behaviour and what must have been an incessant, uncontrollable and overwhelming desire for songwriting and expressing of his creativity, Tim Buckley’s music tells stories beyond stories, within stories. The tales don’t end with each silence between tracks; they carry on, they stay with you. Beyond the complex chords and creative progressions that make up for his musical landscape (funnily enough, were severely affected by an accident Tim suffered, making him unable to play barre chords), his lyrics always seem to be an exercise in derridean philosophy: denying what they say, only to confirm it.

That is actually why I thought it made sense to go with Tim Buckley as "father" for this occasion. Although it is not my part to assume or extrapolate, the fact of the matter is that Tim divorced Mary Guilbert roughly a month before Jeff was born, and the two of them only met once, when Jeff was about eight.
We cannot and will never know what Tim felt for his son - although the non-relationship the two of them kept might hint at something - but we all know the impact Tim had on Jeff, whether simply by the shocking nature of his death or by his apparent absence as a father.
But somewhere inside, being a son myself and knowing for a fact how tough father-son relationships can be, I take comfort in thinking that Tim loved his son (or maybe I just choose to believe this), albeit from afar, in the midst of all the mess that made up his life.

And love, so it seems, was at the heart of his music.
Tim's love songs tell sometimes more of how love comes hard, how sometimes it never comes at all, and in this he only seems to be reinforcing how love moves all, how love is, in fact, all. It’s a sort of reenactment of the old adage “immovable object, meet unstoppable force”, but with love all over.
This one is one of my personal favourites, where love is concerned.

There is also loss, ache, tribulations, always told as Tim only knows. It’s not sardonic as, say, Warren Zevon (yes, by now you know I’m a bit of a fanboy of Zevon’s), but it’s still amazing how he can summon negativity, confess his sins and still come up with a highly entertaining way to do so.

It’s this take on life and things, this deeply subversive way of engaging with everything that makes life what it is, sometimes quite blasé, other times filled with brooding, tainted affections, not very detached from the way in which he surrendered to drugs and addiction and affliction, that, for me, makes Tim Buckley highly flawed, tormented and human. His ghosts form a deep, deep part of what he represents, for me, personally, as a musician and singer-songwriter.

This is, of course, highly biased and a clear projection of what I listen in his voice and music. He may be this, but he is certainly much more as well. Which is why I cannot encourage you enough to give him a chance. He cannot be described in a page and a half; like his music, far richer and older and stronger than his 28 years in life could make you think, his character oozes in every chord, every note, in larger than life legacy that has endured and will endure for many, many years to come.

I leave you with two of my personal favourites of Tim’s pieces.
Its exotic, haunted, haunting, amusing, tragic and overall moving charisma makes, I believe, for a good example of what Tim Buckley represents and of how strong and truly remarkable his legacy really his.