Song of the Week: Sanctuary
Oh, you're a fan? Name five Tamino songs. (I can't.)
There’s only one Jeff Buckley, let’s get that out of the way first. That’s a whole lot of mythology to throw on a guy who only released one official album in his lifetime (but who gets more mythology than The Too Soon Gone, the Big What If? No one, I say. It’s easier to mythologize on a small sample size.). Lofty projections and hyperbolic revisionism aside, I really do think it’s true, that there was only one of him.
If you were an NBA fan in the 80s, you likely remember the tragedy of Len Bias1. If not, a quick summary: by most accounts, the University of Maryland’s Len Bias was poised to become the equivalent of Larry Bird to Michael Jordan’s Magic Johnson, a perennial rival trading punches, vying for championships, duking it out. He had all the gifts—athleticism, size, touch—and then, after being drafted by the Boston Celtics, two days later, he died of a drug overdose before ever even putting on a Celtics uniform. I mention Bias because I kind of think Jeff Buckley was Len Bias in that, from the little we saw from him, we had every reason to believe he was going to be a game-changing force, an all-timer, a legend-in-the-making. And, like with Bias, we’ll never know; the legend never actually got to be fully made. If you were a music fan in the 90s, you likely remember the tragic news about Buckley, but another quick summary: while in Memphis recording his sophomore album (re-recording actually, some sessions in NYC had been unsatisfactory2), Buckley decided to take an ill-fated swim in the Mississippi River and was never seen alive again, his lifeless body washing up on the shore some days later3.
Whoa, a cocaine overdose and a drowning in the first paragraph. Sorry. I’m getting the dark out of the way early this time, I guess.
Anyway, I was saying: there was only one Jeff Buckley.
You may find shades of Buckley:
- in the prequel that was his absent (and similarly4 ill-fated5) father, Tim
- in the voices of some soundalikes (who could also be reasonably categorized as Diet Radiohead). Think Chris Martin of Coldplay or Matt Bellamy of Muse.
- in Rufus Wainwright, who is on the record as deeply envying Buckley, here and there
-in some of Chris Cornell, who was on the record, as a friend but also admirer; I tend to think “Seasons” was the song he would’ve written for Grace (even if the timelines don’t work).
-and, sure, in actual Radiohead, with his British brother from another mother, Thom Yorke6
But there was only one full-fledged Jeff Buckley because Buckley existed at a confluence of or inflection point for a unique range of influences—sure, the obvious Led Zeppelin (Plant vocal-range-wise, yes, but also very much Page, guitar-sensibility-wise) is in there, but also decidedly un-rock singers like Nina Simone and Edith Piaf and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan7, and more experimental/ethereal singers like Elisabeth Fraser8 (Cocteau Twins), and all the way over to 20th century classical composers like Debussy9 and Britten10, plus there’s some folkie there in the soft-spoken, nimble-fingered guise of Nick Drake and the genetic fact that he couldn’t help being Tim Buckley’s kid11— we haven’t seen since. Or at least I haven’t had the luck of hearing, all those influences and inputs colliding in just that particular way.
If you look at the setlists from Buckley’s shows at NYC club Sin-e (Live at Sin-e, documents a pre-fame Buckley’s early shows) you’ll see a wildly eclectic group of songs, but without the “look how cool my taste is” vibes. Some originals, a traditional folk tune, obviously the storied Leonard Cohen cover, but also covers of Van Morrison, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bad Brains, Ray Charles, Edith Piaf, Siouxsie Sioux, Billie Holiday, Led Zeppelin, Jevetta Steele12, The Smiths…he wasn’t just playing contemporary hits or ubiquitous classics (though his version of Cohen’s “Hallelujah” may very well have upgraded that song from hidden gem to ubiquitous classic).
Sometimes, it’s like anybody with a clear voice that can really soar can’t help but get tagged with the Buckley comparisons. Over time, we boil an artist down to some memorable trait rather than the breadth of their artistry. Think, for instance, of how people focus on the croak of nasal whine (depending on the era) of Bob Dylan, ignoring his unbelievable phrasing and musicality. Or think of the way Robert Plant influenced most of the singers of 80s hair metal, who focused on the banshee screech but entirely missed the lower and middle register of his voice, not to mention his patient jazz-influenced phrasing.
So, yeah, people who can do an emotive swoop and reach into the clouds vocally? They get compared to Buckley.
So it goes with Tamino, who I’d never heard of until the algorithm (maybe not good for nothing, after all) served up his song, my Song of the Week, “Sanctuary” to me.
All things being equal, Tamino does hit a few of the Buckley checklist boxes.
-Dreamy looks and great hair, as evidenced by the photo above
-Clear and rather heavenly singing
-Melancholy just in the tone alone
-Some appropriate and earned Middle Eastern (Egyptian13) influence.
-Not to mention that the 3/4 waltz time signature and alternate-tuning acoustic14 guitars chord progression and slurry lisped opening vocal on “Sanctuary” are all, well, VERY BUCKLEY.
One thing I love, though, is that the song builds, to the point where you would expect Tamino to smash the EXTRA BUCKLEY button and launch his vocal up into the stratosphere. But instead, he swerves and hands the mic to who15?
Mitski16.
Whose vocal is perfect, man. And, in her range, it’s not a big performative rock screecher vocal, dripping with melisma and syrup. Nope, it’s just gorgeous.
So gorgeous it brought a tear to my eye just now listening to it. I haven’t the slightest idea why. I had to rewind it to even know the words she’s singing and see if that was it. Not really. Some combination of the chords underneath and the melody up top, and, most critically, HOW she sings over the music….it gave me the chills.
Then at last, when Mitski and Tamino17’s vocals combine, guess what i’m going to say…yeah, I’m pretty predictable…
it’s perfect.
I want to just melt into the 1s and 0s of Spotify, in hopes that somewhere within the servers and worldwide wires, virtual Tamino and virtual Mitski will adopt me and sing me to sleep every night in our warm, melancholy cocoon of code.
Is that too much to ask?
This is the image I’ll never forget. I feel like it was in every newspaper and sports magazine after he died. So much promise.
With all due respect to Jeff, the version of “Everybody Here Wants You” from those sessions is so so so good. Simmering.
Curiously, the autopsy showed no drugs or alcohol in his system. And it was not ruled a suicide.
and similarly genre-averse—Buckley dabbled in folk, psychedelic rock, progressive jazz (at his nadir—an addict, alcoholic, losing his golden voice—he made some funky-ish R&B records that aren’t my favorite singing-wise), never sitting comfortably in any one category.
After one too many relapses, Tim Buckley overdosed on heroin, dying at just 28 years old. (Jeff died at 30.)
History says that Yorke went home and wrote “Fake Plastic Trees'“ after attending a Buckley concert in London. He also credits Buckley for giving him confidence to sing in falsetto (thank you, Jeff).
Buckley called Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan “my Elvis.”
TIL: Buckley and Fraser dated for a year! I also learned that Buckley had proposed to Joan Wasser (who records under the pseudonym Joan As Police Woman) just before his tragic death in the Mississippi River.
Buckley’s “Dream Brother” is a decent example of Debussy’s influence (and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for that matter, if you listen to the wordless vocalizations in the middle). The way the song is kind of open and modal, practically ambiguous in its tonality, that really leans towards Debussy, as does the dreamy fluidity of the rhythm (listen to the introductory figure of Debussy’s “La Mer” for a place Buckley may have learned to love that floaty, unresolved feeling).
In the same way that Eddie Vedder’s recent cover of The English Beat’s “Save It For Later” is just Eddie Doing Pete Townshend’s Version, Buckley’s cover of “Corpus Christi Carol” is Jeff Doing Britten’s A Boy Was Born 1933 arrangement, right down to the restraint, clarity, pace, and use of silence. He does it justice, for what that’s worth.
Poetically, most musicians in 2025 who cover Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” are just Person Doing Jeff Buckley’s Version.
It was all genetics, though. They only met once. For 10 minutes, the story goes.
Don’t know a thing about Jevetta
Tamino is Belgian-Egyptian, the grandson of Egyptian singer/actor Moharam Fouad.
On the other Tamino songs I sampled, he employs a clean electric guitar much like Buckley’s signature Sin-e sound.
whom?
A critically-acclaimed Japanese-American musician who’s been called “a poet of loneliness.” I don’t know about all that, but I sure love her song “Your Best American Girl.” The arc and explosion of it, of course, but also the way she explores identity, belonging, yearning, in-between-ness.
Do you think that when Tamino was looking for someone to duet with, one of his requirements was that the singer had to go by one name and one name only?
“Sorry, Phoebe Bridgers! We’re just looking for someone…briefer”
“Sure, let’s see what Cher sounds like on this one…”
“Does anyone have Lizzo’s number? Sia’s? SZA’S?”
Dang, Paul, now you got me wanting to bust out my Live at Sin E box set.