Behold, the final demo of A Coat Of Butterflies before going into the studio to record what can be heard on the album. If you’re not a paid subscriber I am granting you access to this demo but to follow the the lineage of the song and to access to all my other demos you’ll need to become a paid subscriber.
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I began the skeleton of this recording in my hotel room in Memphis but waited until I was back home in my shed in Kansas City to really dig in and explore. I added a drum machine, piano, mellotron and samples of birds and water that I had downloaded off of a meditation app as a place holder. I knew at some point I would return to Memphis to collect the real samples of all these things near the riverbank of where Jeff Buckley entered the water on the night he drowned - but in the meantime needed to document all of the ideas that I had harvested during my trip.
I’m proud of where this demo landed and what the long exploration of this song both sonically and in its subject matter eventually led to. This demo seemed cohesive enough that once I was in the studio with Sam we had a good idea of its direction - the blueprint had been mapped and we just needed to build it into a three dimensional home that listeners could live inside of.
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The story of Jeff Buckley completely consumed and fascinated me for months, and in truth, forever will. I felt a kindred spirit to him, in many ways, though maybe thats wishful thinking on my part and i’m just flattering myself. I am in no way saying that I was at all as wonderfully talented as the young man, but what I am saying is that I felt a connection to him in that we both were outsiders - to the South and to Memphis - but seemed to be chasing some kernel of American culture and in our chase were both led to the same place. Though he, for me, was an enormous part of that chase, and I am forever grateful.
I was enamored when I found out that Jeff Buckley had volunteered for a shift at the Memphis Zoo as a butterfly keeper shortly before his death. It seems so odd on the surface that a person of his stature would ever do such a thing, but at the same time, completely relatable to someone who tours often and during the in-between time feels that anxiety of being weightless. I was also taken aback by his home the first time I saw it. I had always envisioned that he, a famous person in all respects, lived in a Southern Victorian Mansion along a lush parkway but when I first came upon his home it surprised me in its modesty and was also not lost on me that it was a similar size, layout and color scheme as my home in Kansas City.
I have also come to understand that Jeff Buckley was more successful overseas than he was here at home in the United States. This is something I relate to immensely and has been my experience throughout my career. Not a terrible position to be in, but something perplexing to the artist none the less - especially as someone who feels my work is so connected to where I come from but only fully resonates outside of it. I’ve gathered through various interviews that Jeff felt the strange weight of this as well.
But of course the one aspect I can’t relate to in Buckleys story is perhaps the biggest, which is of course, his relationship to his father, or lack thereof. Just a few days ago I was doing an interview where the interviewer mentioned that he thought Jeff going to Memphis was in many ways him searching for his father. I had somehow never thought of this before but it’s not a bad theory.
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For a long time I was a bit self conscious of this song. That I was speaking on or for the dead without being asked and that someone close to him would hear the song and hate it - or worse - that Jeff Buckley himself would not approve and I would be made aware of this in a dream or through some sign from the universe. But recently I had some of those anxieties lifted when, after hearing the song, I was invited to perform at the 25th Anniversary of a Jeff Buckley Tribute Night on his birthday by the organizers of the Metro in Chicago - home to his most iconic performances.
But before that invitation, about a month prior to the album coming out I went back to Memphis to do a profile with the New York Times. I drove in the night before and was so nervous for the interview that I barely slept. I woke up exhausted but convinced myself to go for a run before the interview. I was back in Downtown Memphis (though not at the Peabody, which was sold out because the Grizzlies were in the playoffs) and decided to run the same path I would run during my writing trip a year before, which ends at the exact point in the river where Jeff Buckley was last seen. As I circled back after reaching the entry point I was met by a family of butterflies who flew alongside me for the next little while.
It’s easy to chalk some things up to coincidence and overlook the magic of the universe. Perhaps the magic isn’t really there but we make it up to appease ourselves of certain things. Or perhaps it is there but we often overlook it. But in this circumstance I like to believe that in that moment Jeff Buckley was communicating with me, giving me his approval, and wishing me luck.
thank you for everything jeff xoxoxo
km
A COAT OF BUTTERFLIES OFFICIAL DEMO (5/5), a letter to Jeff Buckley.