musings & inspiration: July 2010

Saturday, July 31

everybody's so unique

"normalcy doesn't exist. I don't think that my family that I grew up in was normal. My father's an actuary and my mother was teaching school. That sounds kind of normal, but everybody's so unique. And whenever you get to know anybody really well, you realize they're just as complex as anyone else. "

IGN interview with steve head

GIF: jeff

Thursday, July 29

i don't expect anyone else to feel that way.

"Anything can tell a story if you’re not at a party listening to a record. Jacques Brel tells a story specifically through his lyrics, but when I listen to John Coltrane that man tells me the story of his life just by playing what he plays. He tells me about Chicago and he tells me about New York and Harlem. He tells me about being a musician and he tells me all of his love just by what he plays. That’s how it is to my mind. I don’t expect anyone else to feel that way. I don’t think that you have to convey a story through words alone. In fact, words can be pretty inadequate because words which sound good in songs don’t always mean what you would want them to mean."

-tim buckley

Wednesday, July 28

Jeff Buckley's Personal Plea of Love to Bob Dylan

[The most incredible thing about this letter is it starts off "Dear Bob"..."Dear Bob"

Anyway, This was written backstage at the night- at the- Thanksgiving evening. I played a gig at the Wetlands, and I got trapped backstage by a huge crowd, I couldn't get out. So, I decided I'd get down to it. So this was written on Thanksgiving.]

Dear Bob,

[And I don't know what purpose this will serve at all.]

I don't know how to start. Last Saturday, my man, Steve Burkowitz, broke it to me that you were told of something I said from the stage and that you'd felt insulted. I need for you to listen to me. I have no way of knowing how my words are translated to you, if they're whole meaning and context are intact, but the truth is that I was off on a tangent, on a stage, my mind going where it goes, trying to be funny, it wasn't funny at all and I fucked up, I really fucked up.

And the worst of it isn't that your boys were at the gig to hear it. It doesn't really bother me. It just kills me to know that whatever they told you was what you think I think of you-

not that I love you, not that I've always listened to you and carried the music with me wherever I go, not that I believe in you and also that your show was great. It was only the separate club crowd that I was cynical about and that's what I was trying to get at when I said what I said. And I'm sorry that I'll never get to make another first impression. You were really gracious to me, to even allow me backstage to meet you. I'll never forget you, what you told me for as long as I live. He said "Make a good record man" and I'm very honored to have met you at all. [He said some other shit too,] I'm only sad that I didn't get a chance to tell you before all this intrigue, the intrigue is not the truth. Lots of eyes will read this letter before it gets to you, Bob, which I accept. Someday you will know exactly what I mean, man to man.

Always be well,

Jeff Buckley

[And you know who's going to read this? The President of Sony Records, my A&R man, my manager, his two managers, his friend Ratzo, and this is my personal plea of love to Bob Dylan, and this is what happens when you're not nobody anymore]

it's such a pure expression or song from the soul

“Oh gosh, where do I start with the music? I mean, on so many levels, it has affected my life, and still continues to.

I guess one example is that, to me, music, particularly the voice singing and songwriters, poets, like Dylan, or whoever, to me, it’s such a pure expression or song from the soul. It deeply connects to mine. It has always been a key that kind of unlocked, or enabled me to express anger, or pain of any sort. It’s always been a kind of wonderful excuse or a door for me, in terms of being able to express myself creative and personally.”

from an interview for i'm not there, 2007