Music / Grace

She's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever!

"Technically he was the best singer that appeared, that had appeared, probably, I'm not being too liberal about this if I say in two decades. I started to play "Grace" constantly, constantly and the more, the more I listened to the album, the more, the more I heard — the more I appreciated of Jeff and Jeff's talents and Jeff's total ability to which he was just a wizard and it was close to being my favorite album of the decade."

—Jimmy Page in the BBC Documentary "Everybody Here Wants You" (2002).

Grace was Jeff Buckley's debut album and the only record released during his lifetime. It has been praised as one of the most impressive debut albums of all time and one of the most important and influential albums of the 1990s.

"Last Goodbye" was Buckley's only chart hit during his lifetime, peaking at #19 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks (now Alternative Songs) chart. However, nowadays "Hallelujah" has become the most famous track of the album and in 2013 it has been included in the National Recording Registry.

Tracklist:

1. "Mojo Pin" - 5:42
2. "Grace" - 5:22
3. "Last Goodbye" - 4:35
4. "Lilac Wine" - 4:32
5. "So Real" - 4:43
6. "Hallelujah" - 6:53
7. "Lover, You Should've Come Over" - 6:43
8. "Corpus Christi Carol" - 2:56
9. "Eternal Life" - 4:52
10. "Dream Brother" - 5:26

Troper, You Should've Come Over

• The Alcoholic: "Lilac Wine".
  I drink much more than I ought to drink.
• Alliterative Title: "Corpus Christi Carol".
• Break Up Song: "Last Goodbye" and "Lover You Should've Come Over" both address lovers going apart.
• Calling the Old Man Out: "Dream Brother" references Jeff's father Tim Buckley and seems to be urging another man not to follow his example.
  Don't be like the one who made me so old
  Don't be like the one who left behind his name.
  'Cause they're waiting for you, like I waited for mine
  And nobody ever came.
• Cover Version:
  • "Hallelujah", a Leonard Cohen cover.
  • "Lilac Wine", a James Shelton cover.
  • "Corpus Christi Carol", a traditional song.
• Cut Song: "Forget Her", which which appeared on an internal promo cassette of the album but was replaced on the final album with a newly recorded track "So Real". According to the book "Dream Brother", Buckley was quite adamant that the label not release "Forget Her", feeling that its romantic tone would overshadow tracks he felt represented him better (he also did not take kindly to their suggestion it could be a hit single). As a result, it wasn't released in his lifetime. However, after the song was released on the Grace Legacy Edition, Columbia added it as a bonus track to the regular CD edition of the album without stating that it was.
• Drowning My Sorrows: "Lilac Wine".
  I drink much more than I ought to drink.
• Epic Rocking: "Mojo Pin", "Grace", "Hallelujah", "Lover You Should've Come Over" and "Dream Brother".
• Face on the Cover: Jeff holding a microphone, looking down.
• Grief Song: "Hallelujah". As beautiful as the album is the fact that is was Buckley's only record released during his lifetime paints a sad and sometimes eerie shadow over some of the song's lyrics: "Well it's my time coming, I'm not afraid to die" ("Grace"), "This is our last Goodbye" ("Last Goodbye") and "Eternal life is now on my trail" ("Eternal Life")
• Immortality: "Eternal Life".
  Eternal life is now on my trail.
• Incredibly Long Note: Most notably in "Mojo Pin" and "Grace". Also, one note in "Hallelujah" lasts 23 seconds. He makes it sound casual and effortless.
• The Insomniac: "Lover, You Should've Come over''
  My body turns and yearns for a sleep
  That won't ever come.
• It Always Rains at Funerals: "Lover, You Should've Come Over"
  ''Looking out the door I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners
  Parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Last Goodbye", a peppy sing-along song about two lovers parting.
• One-Woman Song and One-Word Title: "Grace" (it's not clear whether the song refers to a woman's surname or the word "grace" (to thank).
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: "Hallelujah", a cover of Leonard Cohen is now better known in Buckley's Cover Version than the original.
• Title-Only Chorus: "Hallelujah".
• Title Track: "Grace". The word (or name?) itself doesn't appear in any of the lyrics.

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