I have made today Tim
Buckley day. I’m listening to the first five albums that Tim made in his
career. I sold three books in the last few days, my signed Antonia Fraser book called The
Weaker Vessel, did you know that Antonia Fraser was the inspiration for
Lady Writer by Dire Straits? well you do now. I also sold a biography of Andy
Warhol and also my signed Michael Foot book. I was in Bath again yesterday
afternoon, so I thought I’d treat myself to some new music with the proceeds from my books.
In HMV I noticed that they had a lot of box sets of five albums by various
artists for only £9.99. There were sets by the likes of Fairport Convention,
Emmylou Harris, Sandy Denny, Bonnie Raitt, The Pogues and lots of others. I
ummed and aared for a few minutes and finally opted for the Five album box set
by Tim Buckley. That is because I
didn’t have any Tim Buckley in my collection and people are always telling me
how great he is.
Today I am listening to all five in chronological order.
The first one is simply called Tim
Buckley and was released in 1966. I would describe it as psychedelic-folk.
It reminds me slightly of early Country Joe & The Fish or Jefferson
Airplane or even a little hint of The Monkees on some tracks. Tim would have
only been 19 years old when this album was made. The lyrics and music show he
was very precocious to produce something so sophisticated at such a young age.
The second one is called Goodbye & Hello which came out in the summer of love of 67 and
shows a huge development in a year. It is a much more ambitious album and
possibly influenced by Sargent Pepper. It makes much more use of sound effects
such as aircraft and fairground sounds. Jackson C. Frank and David Ackles came
into my head on some tracks. After one listen a track called Phantasmagoria In Two stood out for me. Apparently,
this album flopped when released which is surprising because it seems to
capture the zeitgeist of the times. The lyrics are very poetic and also seem
quite political at times which isn’t surprising because the war in Vietnam was
raging at the time.
The third one is called Happy
Sad and shows another change in direction. It sounds a lot jazzier and
improvised to me. The songs are a lot longer and depart from the musical form
of the previous albums. The vibraphone is very much to the fore. My favourite
song after one listen is Dream Letter and
there is one very poignant line in it where he sings ‘Does he ever ask about me?’ which is obviously a reference to his
son Jeff Buckley who I don’t think he had much contact with when his marriage broke up. Gypsy Woman is a twelve-minute improvised jam. This album isn’t at
all accessible like the previous albums, but I think I’d get to like it after a
few listens.
The fourth album called Blue
Afternoon starts off more in the folk song tradition with Happy Time but then gets much moodier
with Chase The Blues Away and then
stays in that gloomy mood. Listening to these albums I get the feeling that Tim
Buckley was a much happier person at the start of his career and gradually became
unhappier. I admire him for his musical development though because I think the
albums sound less and less commercial with each release, but he didn’t seem to
care about that. That shows the difference between an artist and an entertainer
to me. One wonders what he might have achieved if he hadn’t died so tragically
young. This is an album that I would have to listen to a lot I think, to get
into it, …or not, as the case may be. One listen is not sufficient to judge
something so avant-garde.
The fifth and final album is called Lorca and is named after the Spanish poet Federico-Garcia Lorca. I don’t know anything about Lorca except that
he was killed by Franco supporters in 1936. There are only five very long songs
on this album. The change in style in only four years from the first album is
incredible. This in the most difficult of all the five albums. I would describe
it as experimental free-form avant-garde jazz. The binary form of verse and
chorus has disappeared entirely from the songs. After the first two tracks I
was just about all Tim Buckley-ed out. I was going to turn it off but then the
third track Had A Talk With My Woman saved
the day. It was recognisable as a song. I will listen again at a later date but
enough was enough for today. That album brought Tim Buckley day to an end. I have put Song To The Siren by Tim below if you want to hear it.. It's not on any of the albums I heard today but I think it is a great song.
