Today’s featured album is 1998’s Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk by Jeff Buckley. This album has always given me November vibes for some reason. Maybe there’s something late-autumny in its unfinished, dreamy blur of sound. Or maybe just I listened to it in November a lot one time.
Buckley had been working on his second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, at time of his death in 1997. In fact, he was re-working it, having been unsatisfied with earlier studio sessions, and had recorded several four-track demos in preparation for new studio recordings. After his death, his label wanted to release an album of songs from the original studio sessions, but Buckley’s mother fought for a double album, with disc one featuring the songs from the studio and disc two featuring the demos, as she considered the latter more in line with his vision. The Sketches for was appended to the title to highlight the album’s unfinished status.
The first disc does sound more like a full album than the second, with more polished tracks. The opener, “The Sky Is A Landfill,” is probably about cable TV but is eerily prescient of our current state of information pollution. “Everybody Here Wants You,” a slow sultry number, was released as a single. I’ll also highlight “Opened Once” and “Morning Theft,” the two songs which for some reason remind me most of the weak autumn light shining upon piles of fallen leaves. Just to connect this all back to that November-y vibe thing I started this ramble out with.1Narrative cohesion!
The second disc is, on the whole, clearly more unfinished than the first, but in a way that is genuinely interesting to listen to. What is happening on “Murder Suicide Meteor Slave”? I have no idea, but I love the noises it’s making! The cover of Genesis’ “Back in N.Y.C.” is tinny and distorted and distant and imminent and wonderful. “Jewel Box” is a lovely little ballad, while “I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be)” is off-kilter and urgent.
Anyhoo, I love all of these songs, but I’m going to highlight “Haven’t You Heard” because it has one of those notes that kind of hooks on my soul a little bit. This is also one of the more finished songs on the second disc. The ‘90s rock vibes are clear here—one might almost call it grungy, especially with the social dystopia lyrical situation it has going on.
So that’s great. I honestly recommend listening to the whole album though.2Yes, there are a few songs left I didn’t link to in the article already. And they’re all great too!
BONUS PROMPT: What song has a note that hooks on your soul a little bit?
Happy Night Threading!