poll for Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk by Jeff Buckley

my most vivid memory re: Sketches for My Sweetheart was passing out late at night with the record playing "Satisfied Mind" over and over, then i had a dream about hundreds of dead bodies floating face down in a lake, and the dream went on FOREVER while Jeff crooned "Satisfied Mind" over and over and over. fucking scared the shit out of me

(voted "Satisfied Mind")

"Satisfied Mind" is really great but it always stuck in my craw a little that they tacked on a live cover from 5 years earlier than every other recording, you'd think they would've kept it for use as the crown jewel of some collection of earlier rarities

I love "The Sky is a Landfill" but it still feels ...well ... unfinished. As much as I love his one-man cover of "Back in NYC," I'm going with "Everybody Here Wants You," as it's gorgeous.

Voted Opened Once

Everybody Here Wants You is getting my vote as it's my favourite thing he ever did. I listen to this album a lot more than Grace these days. The Sky Is a Landfill, Opened Once, Morning Theft and Vancouver are all such beautiful songs.

I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby is my favourite from the second disc, it's one of the saddest songs I can think of and it breaks my heart everytime.

Another vote for 'Everybody Here...' even though 'Vancouver' and 'Morning Theft' always used to be my favourites. I love how effortless the first disc of this sounds e.g. the breeziness of 'Witches' Rave'.

'Morning Theft' was my favorite when i was younger, but the other day, i heard "Nightmares by the Sea" and i was like, "wow, i kind of like this song."

morning theft

When I first bought the album, I woulda said "Nightmares by the Sea", because the "Stay with me under these waves tonight" line seemed so creepily prescient.

But these days I say "Everybody Here Wants You."

Everybody Here Wants You, easily. best song The Miracles never recorded....

"morning theft" or "jewel box"

one day back in the summer of 2009 i was driving down the highway listening to a mix cd this girl had given me. it was july in texas and it should have been hot but for some reason it was clear and gorgeous enough that i could get away with rolling the windows down and letting myself feel the breeze. the girl was out of town for a few weeks, but she'd given me the CD right before she left and i was playing it for the first time, enjoying my day off by just driving aimlessly down the interstate. i was all about this girl, the kind of head-over-heels i hadn't been since i was 16, and the day was so bright, and i had just gotten paid, and the songs on this cd were all so good, and then 'jewel box' came on, and i was smoking a cigarette, and it was maybe one of the most perfect moments i've ever had.

"jewel box."

heartwarming!

I just listened to this again & realized Morning Theft is the one I always skip.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Haven't You Heard because it's great fun, but could have picked several. Opened Once & Morning Theft both so pretty. New Year's Prayer so spooky. Vancouver starts like the best song ever bit feels like the second half is unfinished. Landfill and Wants you both excellent. That So Happy Baby never got recorded properly is an enormous tragedy.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow, i feel out of step, "Vancouver" is the only one of my favorites that got more than 1 vote. "Jewel Box" was surprisingly robbed!

"Everybody Here Wants You" is nice but as far as tracks that show how he could've gone in a more soulful direction i much prefer "I Want Someone Badly"

I don't know which surprises me more: only two votes for "Murder Suicide Meteor Slave" (for me, the blueprint for what would've been his crowning achievement -- and it would have been recorded/produced the same way), or none at all for "Back in NYC."

This thread has made me revisit Sketches for the first time in yeeeeears. I hadn't listened to any Jeff in years, really, and a recent encounter with Last Goodbye in a shop was most disappointing. I found it overwrought, overproduced. Much of Grace is like that. You can't fault his ambition, but he gets a bit carried away with the power of his voice and studio filigree. It's clearly a debut album, but one that's inevitably been pushed up into the pantheon as it's all we have. But really, Sketches is the one for the pantheon. It's cleaner, leaner, weirder. Far superior to Grace. I'd forgotten how good Morning Prayer is, Vancouver too. Really love the slightly gothy stuff like Nightmares By The Sea and Witches Rave - not best song on the record, but deserving of a vote surely? The songwriting is way more advanced. But perhaps the biggest difference is that he's learned to control his voice much more - Liz Fraser's influence?

Anyway, I voted Everybody Here Wants You but having explored the album further I'd like to have gone for New Year's Prayer, Vancouver or Witches Rave p'rhaps...

"Grace" always seemed like a "Introducing..." type album.

On the one hand, he could have made a vast amount of 'different category' albums, based on that one showcase.

Then again, there was a fair amount of time between that album and his death (while fussing over making album 2).

Another one of those guys that liked to prevaricate and act like there was all the time in the world...

Not having heard Genesis as 17 year old I didn't have a clue what to make of his Back In NYC. It's fuckin' great though. That huge clunking bass and the spidery guitar parts. Aw yeah.

(clarification) 13 years later, I think it's fucking great.

pretend I voted for "Murder Suicide Meteor Slave"

"witches rave" is so hot

Weirdly I just got the urge to listen to this yesterday. I ended up listening to it two days in a row. Morning Theft is the one that really grabbed me this time round, especially the way he sings "I miss my beautiful friend".

Yard of Blonde Girls and Witches Rave and Sky is a Landfill and so many good songs

“Yard of Blonde Girls” is an awesome song. I guess he didn’t write it, but one verse is about him(?)

“Gunshot Glitter” isn’t on this poll, but that one’s kind of amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQiom9uRKog

It’s like the best Strokes song that the Strokes never made, or could make, or something…

I wonder why he wasn’t happy with these recordings… like what sound did he have in his head that he was trying to achieve. Some artists work very hard trying to make an album that approaches this quality!

yeah it's hard to know. the finished tracks on this certainly sound very acceptably finished.

iirc from books I've read, he just felt the downward pressure from Columbia and doubted himself greatly, he wanted to work with Tom Verlaine producing and the experience yielded four of the tracks but I don't think that went very well overall.