SONG OF THE DAY
“Buzzing Fly” by Tim Buckley (Happy Sad, Elektra Records, 1969). Written by Tim Buckley.
WHERE I HEARD IT
One of my doctors actually recommended it to me when I told him I was a music blogger! I just love talking to people about the blog because they always want to tell me what they like, what strikes them, what hits their soul, and it’s instantly a great connection and understanding of someone. Plus, I love learning about new music and having people tell me why they listen to what they listen to—-there’s so much music in the world, it’s overwhelming, and if I could talk to people all day about what they love and why I would be in heaven. Thanks, Dr. Tello for this great recommendation! What outstanding guitar work this song has! Everyone, ENJOY!
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– Happy Sad is the third album by singer-songwriter Tim Buckley
– It marked the beginning of Buckley’s experimental period, as it incorporated elements of jazz that he had never used before. Many of the songs here represent a departure from the binary form that dominated much of his previous work. The sound of the album is characterized by David Friedman’s vibraphone, an instrument which gives the album a more relaxed tone than Buckley’s earlier work.
– The songs are much longer than on previous releases and this style continued through to later works.
– The vocals on the album are more drawn out than earlier performances and this represents the beginning of Buckley using his voice like an instrument. The lyrics on Happy Sad represent a change as Buckley stopped working with Larry Beckett, his lyricist on his two previous albums, and began writing the lyrics himself. Buckley’s self-penned efforts stand in contrast to Beckett’s occasionally political and literary-style work. Buckley would go on to author all his own material on the following two albums.
– Buckley’s musical tastes expanded during the period that the album was written and the first track, “Strange Feelin”, was directly inspired by Miles Davis’ “All Blues” from Kind of Blue and the melody of the song is directly taken from the song.
– “Buzzin’ Fly” was written much earlier than the rest of the work and was originally performed with a group Buckley had during high school, the Harlequin 3, with bassist Jim Fielder and later lyricist, Larry Beckett.
– “Dream Letter” is as an ode and apology to his ex-wife, Mary Guibert, and his son Jeff Buckley. This is the second song Buckley wrote about the pair, the first being “I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain” on his previous LP, Goodbye and Hello. In comparison to that song “Dream Letter” has a more apologetic tone, the lyrics reveal this with Buckley lamenting “Does he ever ask about me?” . It would be over five years later that Buckley would meet with his son again. The name of the song would later be used for a live album: posthumous release Dream Letter: Live in London 1968. The concert features much of the same personnel from the Happy Sad.
– Released at the height of his popularity, Happy Sad was his highest charting album, reaching #81 in the US Pop albums chart, but Buckley’s experimentation on this album would alienate some of the fan base and his mainstream appeal he gained with Goodbye and Hello. However, this was only the beginning of Buckley’s experimentation with sound and genre, and subsequent releases would further reduce his mainstream popularity and see his sales take a downturn.
– Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American vocalist and musician.
– His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album (1966) was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving “voice as instrument,” sound.
– He died at age 28, survived by his son Jeff Buckley (another incredible musician).
– He spent his early childhood in Amsterdam, New York, an industrial city approximately 40 miles northwest of Albany; here at five years old he made his first acquaintance with music, his mother’s progressive jazz recordings (she was a fan of Miles Davis).
– His grandmother had introduced him to Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, his mother to Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and Judy Garland and his father to the country music of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
– At age 13 he taught himself the banjo, and with his new friend, Dan Gordon, and several others formed a folk group inspired by the Kingston Trio that played local high school events.
– During a football game in high school he broke the first two fingers on his left hand, permanently damaging them. He later said that the injury prevented him from playing barre chords. This disability may have led to his use of extended chords, many of which don’t require barres.
– In 1965 during French class at Loara High School Tim met Mary Guibert, one grade his junior and his soon to be wife. Their relationship inspired some of Tim’s music, and provided him time away from his turbulent home life (Tim’s father, a highly decorated WW II veteran, had become unstable, angry and occasionally violent in his later years. He had suffered a serious head injury during the war; that, along with a severe work related injury, was said to have affected his mental balance).
– Mary and Tim married on the 25th of October, as Mary was pregnant (it turned out to be a hysterical pregnancy). The marriage was tumultuous, some ups and lots of downs. Tim moved out to his own apartment. Mary soon became pregnant. After several months of married and “pregnant,” life, Tim found himself neither willing nor able to cope with marriage, and with pregnancy in particular. They divorced in October 1966 about a month before Jeffrey Scott (Jeff Buckley) was born.
– Buckley’s ill conceived college career (1965, Fullerton College) lasted only two weeks. College and a fledgling music career were too much for him to cope with. His mini stint at Fullerton completed, Buckley now dedicated himself fully to his music and to playing L.A. folk clubs.
– Uneducated both vocally and instrumentally in the finer aspects of melody and lyric structure, the quality of the tracks he produced demonstrate the natural talent he possessed.
– Dissatisfied with playing the same old material continuously, and disenchanted with the music business that he felt was restraining him from producing new material, he began to weave in new songs into his performances, featuring an increasingly minimalist sound from his heavily orchestrated first two albums, and introducing a vibraphone player into his band. However, this attempted rejuvenation was a commercial failure; becoming largely based on improvisation, his performances were less accessible to the audiences who saw him as a folk-rock poster boy.
After the commercial failure of avant-garde jazz albums, including Happy Sad, Buckley’s live performances degraded to insincere chores and he eventually ended up unsellable. Unable to produce his own music and almost completely broke, he turned to alcoholic drug binges.
– In 1975, having alienated his fanbase and squandered his money, Tim dropped his drug dependencies and engaged the musical press regarding a live album comeback. Buckley began performing revamped versions of material drawn from his whole career (except his failed albums) as a response to the desires of his audience, desires he had always spurned in the past.
– On June 28, 1975, Buckley completed the last show of a tour in Dallas, Texas, playing to a sold-out venue with 1,800 people in attendance. Buckley celebrated the culmination of the tour with a weekend of drinking with his band and friends, as was his normal routine. On the evening of June 29, 1975, Buckley decided to accompany long-time friend Richard Keeling back to his house in the hope of obtaining some heroin. After spending an hour or so at the house, Buckley, in his inebriated state, walked in on Keeling while he was having sex, causing an argument between the two. Keeling, with the aim of placating him, handed Buckley a large dose of heroin and challenged him to “Go ahead, take it all”. Given Buckley’s contrary and rebellious nature, he duly snorted all the drug laid out for him. Following this, Buckley was in such a bad condition that friends chose to take him home rather than leave him to his own devices. Upon his return home, his wife Judy, seeing his inebriated state, laid him down on a pillow on their living room floor and proceeded to question his friends as to what had happened. Soon Judy moved Buckley into bed. Checking on him later, she found he had turned blue and was no longer breathing. Attempts by friends and paramedics to revive him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead on arrival. Having diligently controlled his drug habit while on the road, his tolerance was lowered, and the combination of the drugs he took mixed with the amount of alcohol he had consumed throughout the day was too much. The coroner’s report by Dr. Joseph H. Choi stated that he died at 9:42pm, June 29, 1975, from “acute heroin/morphine and ethanol intoxication due to inhalation and ingestion of overdose”. Long time friend and lead guitarist, Lee Underwood, has stated that “on many previous occasions Buckley had ingested considerably more alcohol and drugs than this.”
– Buckley’s death shocked many of his friends and relatives. The drug-related death was in stark contrast to how people had seen him at the time. The sound recorder at Buckley’s last show noted “someone offered him a drag off of a joint and he refused.
– Given the circumstances of his death, police charged Richard Keeling with murder and distribution of heroin. The evidence was insufficient and, at the hearing on August 14, 1975, at Santa Monica Municipal Court, Keeling pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Keeling was given the chance to avoid time in jail by doing voluntary work but he failed to keep to the bargain and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and 4 years probation.
– Buckley’s son Jeff was not in attendance at the date of the funeral and instead sang at a Tim Buckley tribute show, held in New York in 1991 to pay his last respects.
– Reportedly, on the evening of June 29, 1975, a friend heard Buckley’s last words: “Bye, bye, baby”,[4] perhaps alluding to the line in Ray Charles’ “Driftin’ Blues”.
– His guitars were a Guild 12 String Guitar and a Fender Electric XII.
– Several books have been written about him: Once He Was: the Tim Buckley Story, (1997). Barrera, Paul; Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, (2001) Browne, David; and Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered, (2002). Underwood, Lee.
– Two tribute compilations have been recorded in his honor: Sing a Song for You: Tribute to Tim Buckley (2000) and Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley (2005).
LINK TO HEAR IT
Click here to hear the full version of the song from ilike.com
VIDEO OF THE DAY
and here’s The Swell Season performing a live cover!: