Cover Songs

        Jeff Buckley is somewhat infamous for his repertoire of cover songs. In his early years in New York, Jeff's coffee-house gigs included his takes on such artists as Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, French treasure Edith Piaf and Qawwali devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

        Jeff used these gigs and played these songs to learn his trade. "In my early shows," Buckley says, "I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do."²

        "I'm trying to learn from the great teachers and trying to pay tribute to them." -- Jeff Buckley, Sin-é -era interview

        It had been a few years since those early gigs and Jeff's regard for doing covers had evolved. Before his death, Jeff had made it known that he was his own man, and along with his band, they had their own music to present:

        The philosophical bent of [some songs on] Grace is balanced by more cover versions, of course. Both Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and Nina Simone's "Lilac Wine" pay homage to the originals and tap into Buckley's idiosyncratic sensibility, but he turns up his nose at the interpreter's role. "I don't want to do any more covers," he says. "It's good to learn to make things your own, but the education's over. Grace is putting a lot of things to rest."²

        Jeff Buckley certainly had learned his trade. He became that "chanteuse with a penis." -- Jeff Buckley