Vancouver

This song makes me sad because it had so much potential and power, yet it remains an unfinished mystery. It's hard to say what this song "means" because of where Jeff stood at the time and how he lets songs develop freeform. Pods is right this was a favorite instrumental jam song for Jeff and the boys to cut loose near the end of a show and then when he was in the studio with Tom Verlaine he had to force lyrics into this for the first time, and it sounds like he was struggling hard against the currents of this song. Verlaine complained this was three songs in one, and this is exactly why Verlaine wasn't right for Buckley, but then again it is difficult for any engineer to work with a creatively volatile artist such as Jeff. It is somewhat reminiscent of his father Tim who would drop out of rhythms and into another midway like he was crossing through audible temperate zones faster than the listener could adjust. Luckily Jeff is a thousand times easier to listen to than his father, yet he still sounds like he is forcing a mouthful into an instrumentally tight song that would come off as being VERY awkward if it weren't for Jeff's exceptional ability. He somehow makes it work well with his acrobatic voice. Don't get me wrong, this is an amazing song. I love the driving yet stringy Rickenbacker-like opening, and the way it leaves you hanging naked and pillaged at the end just as relationships often do. It's so hard not to expect more with that powerful opening; it stays with you throughout and haunts you like someone’s unfinished quest.

I too feel the title for this was a placeholder, and would have changed it in the mastering stage had he survived the Mississippi/wolf's undertow. Jeff says it himself during the Chicago concert "you don't know this one, neither do we” and that’s how he did things. He let his songs grow and take flight. Before he signed the dotted line with Columbia he had all the time in the world to do this. We always want so much from a newly discovered treasure in the industry, but Jeff’s open nerve endings of emotion to the world was a burden that would suck him in and pull him under.