Tim & Jeff Buckley - Sefronia - The King's Chain

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I presume many here are fans of the immortal Jeff Buckley and have at least a passing appreciation that his father (himself a tragic constellation) Tim was something of a figure in folk music in the sixties. Tim abandoned Jeff and his mother and understandably Jeff loathed his absentee father. The dual biography Dream Brother does a marvelous job, alternating chapters of the same period in their lives, of exploring how Jeff became something quite similar to his father through consciously trying at every step to disavow him. The song Dream Brother actually deals with this theme in a certain way. Anyways there were inevitably Tim fans that showed up at Jeff's gigs and called out for Tim songs, which he LOATHED, one bootleg, which is just scalding if you've read the background, has Jeff singing I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain which is Tim's revocation of Jeff's mother in some way.

Anyways I rediscovered Tim's version of Sefronia tonight from a BBC broadcast. This song is interesting for a number of reasons. In the broadcast version I have he says it is based on an Ethiopian fable called I have a cow in the sky but I can't drink her milk and that 'it deals with the irony that man thinks he controls woman but he doesn't... and visa versa'.

It's fascinating in part because Tim Buckley (and Jeff somewhat unwittingly in turn), not unlike say someone like Carla Bley (whose Escalator To Hell is a sprawling folk/jazz/rock opus with lyrics written by Paul Haines, father of Emily Haines) was a pioneer of instrumentalizing folk music and fusing it with might be called jazz sensibilities. At some point Gary Lucas, of Captain Beefheart and a compatriot of Tim's pulled together a New York tribute for Tim and invited of course Jeff. This was a big deal Jeff knew, but he had invested so much in being different then his dad, really didn't know him from Job, but ultimately had to participate. He prided himself on knowing Sefronia lyrically and instrumentally and I gather this is what he played at the performance. There is a Lucas/Buckley release out but I don't know it and don't believe this is on it. Hell of a backstory but it is really eery if you have read the book let's say. A funny anecdote that comes out is that Jeff at the time was in LA going to the Guitar Institute boning up on prog rock shredding (apparently playing a mean Tom Sawyer) and was buddies with of all people one of the guys from Fishbone. I'm not sure if I'm mixing up occasions but I think it was this one night they took ecstasy and Jeff just came out with it that he had to go to New York to play this tribute because his dad was like this, you know, important folk guy. His friends were blown away because he was so humble or hung up he'd never mentioned a thing about it, and it would have opened a lot of doors if he'd wanted it to. In Europe the song off of 1976's Sefronia was released in two parts for regulatory reasons.

Sefronia -- After Asklepiades After Kafka

Sefronia shook the black cat's bone at me

And I was only wax in the spell of fire

Oh my coal black sister,

When black coal burns it ripens

She pried the whip out of her master's hand

And lashed at her own skin

So she'd be master, how could she know

This was just a dream born,

Of a new knot in the bullwhip

Sefronia -- The King's Chain

I couldn't buy you with a hundred cattle

But you hike in shells and feathers

Up the African beach,

I am king here, tied to this hut by the King's chain

My power's like a tree and green taboo to me

The chameleon lies in your dusty fingers,

And blue flies circle your head like stars;

Jump into me now, I must not see the water,

Let me sip weakness from your dark nipples