Then there was the film he was working on, Why?

Right. I think that was finished... Remember how I said there was his artistic life and then there was his mental life? And though they're happening in the same person, there not always connected. And a lot of times I think they're disconnected. Like Mozart, he adored his mother and she died one day. He found out about it and was grief-stricken, but he was a prolific composer and went on continuing to work on this symphony he had been working on. In the midst of his grief. And did he pour out his sorrow about his mother? No. It's one of his most sunniest, most up-beat symphonies. Because that was the logic of the music he was working on. Maybe later on he wrote a eulogy to his mother secretly

Tim would do albums like Look At The Fool and Greetings From L.A.; why? They're rock albums.

There's a whole controversy to what all this is, but my sense of it is that you can sort of trace a line of experimentation from the very first song, I Can't See You right on to the last song Down by the Border Line on Starsailor. And then, you look at the next one, Greetings From L.A., and it's like, that line has been broken. And you can explain it any way you want, but it is true the record company was extremely dismayed by the total lack of sales of Starsailor. It's easy to think that they would've said, 'look, you're gonna have to do something more in the popular vein or we don't even want to have you make records...'

"People talk to me because he's not responsible enough to be here. It's true. The problem with Tim, and myself, is that he was my best friend, so when he died it was a terrible day. I'm not the type of person who grieves and gets over things-- I carry it with me... forever..."

You were still writing with him at this point?

Yes. At that point, I would send him songs and he'd cut them up in different ways. Sort of collage my lyrics together for the most part. So it seems like somebody selling out but of course he does it in a weird-ass way which is like a parody of soul music-- doesn't know what this stuff is, or whether he enjoyed it, or whether he was mocking the world, or what.

Did you feel like he was burning up by it at the same time?

Yeah, you know, I can't help but think that. I can't help but think that that didn't help matters mentally for him; to be in this situation where he felt that he had to make music he didn't want to make.

Did you feel his death was an accident?

Accidentally on purpose is how I describe it. I've known two people in my life who really didn't feel comfortable in their skin. They didn't feel ok about being alive, and both of them died by their own hands. It's just too big of a coincidence. If you read the biographies and so on, you'll see he took a lot of chances. Just riding around in a car with him in those days it was like, okay, we're gonna crash {laughs}. Finally his luck ran out, which was probably what he wanted to have happen anyway. I don't think he liked being alive.

That's disappointing to hear. But sadly, that's where the voice can from, I guess.

I don't agree. Like I said, there's the life of the mind and the life of the art. You can have person like Franz Kafka-- he's deeply neurotic, messed up about his father and women, and can't get out of it; even though he's a genius, he can't figure out a way to get healthy. And he makes a slow amount of progress as his life goes on. But meanwhile, he's creating art that fully understands the problem and rises above it.

So he becomes a different person when he's creating that is healthy and clear-sighted, and when he stops creating, he slides back into his life and he's neurotic and messed up. So where the art came from, he {Tim} was just a true singer. He had a magnificent voice and he was able to compose constantly and always be pushing the envelope until he got to that phase where he was just playing around.

Where's Richard Keeling today (old friend of Tim's who was charged with supplying Tim with the drugs that killed him)? Did he ever get in trouble?

I don't know {where he is}. If you look at the end of {David} Browne's book you'll see he got some sort of suspended sentence.

After Tim's death in '75, where did you do?

I was still in Portland-- I've been here ever since-- and I continue to write poetry. I have a book out called Songs And Sonnets (published by Rainy Day Women Press) that has a few songs, no Tim songs, but some of my later songs and lyric poetry. And I've written about fifteen other books of poetry that are unpublished.

Do you almost feel you're a medium to Tim for people?

Yeah, people talk to me because he's not responsible enough to be here. It's true. The problem with Tim, and myself, is that he was my best friend, so when he died it was a terrible day. I'm not the type of person who grieves and gets over things-- I carry it with me... forever.

You never hold yourself responsible to him, do you?

Well, no, but had I had a chance to go back, I'd probably say something. I did say something to {Jerry} Yester about drinking, and that did help. So for seven years I didn't listen to any Tim Buckley music... because it was too painful. But then, I had this girlfriend I wanted to impress, I pulled out Goodbye And Hello. And then since then, I listen to him a lot.

I still see him in dreams. I'm not really a medium for him, but I have these strange dreams that are not like my regular dream-like dreams, they're very realistic. And he's sitting there and I'm like, 'well whaddya' doing?' And he's like, 'well, I'm trying to work on this new album, wondering if you could help.' And I'm like, 'you can't put out an album, you're dead!' But actually he has albums coming out all the time. {Laughs}

So why am I interviewing you? What is it about the songs of Tim Buckley, that time, that we love and need to this day?

Yeah, that's a question you could best answer. I think the first thing is the beauty-- the beauty of his voice, the beauty of his singing, is something that will never be forgotten. And really, what the songs themselves convey: you can hear in them the devotion to art and the purity of ethics out of which the songs came. Nowadays, and then they did back then too, people are just trying to make a buck off songs, videos, and things-- you really don't hear those qualities. It's like you're wandering a desert and you've come to an oasis of beauty.

Yeah, how come we don't hear a Tim Buckley (today), or maybe we do?

The whole scene's changed. It's hard to even put out a second album out. Really they are trying to sell single songs and not albums, and if the song makes it big, maybe you'll make a second one. If your second single doesn't go anywhere, a lot of times they cancel the contract in their desperate effort to make money.

The strange thing is, the two great flowerings of American pop music were in the fifties and sixties. In the fifties, any ratty little studio could put out some crazy single like That's All Right Mama. It transforms the musical landscape. They would play black songs by black people and white songs by white people. Everybody got to have a voice. The DJs would play whatever the hell they wanted. They'd get something in the mail and say, 'hey, I dig this,' and it'd be Ritchie Valens.

There was no corporate boss owner of the station or owner of the network of stations saying, 'no, that's not professional grade quality sound.' There is a lot of unheard music now. Right now, the situation is so bad between the record companies and the radio companies, America is so full of unheard music. People are playing in their houses. And independent records, that's a really good thing, it's some kind of outlet.

So there still could be singers like Tim Buckley out there?

Yes.

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© 2004 Arnold/Perfect Sound Forever
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