How to Change Your Life (Musically)

The Buckleys -- father and son -- were prodigies with purely unparalleled approaches to music. For one, each had tight, dizzying vibratos, father comfortable in his tenor range, with a sometimes frightening half-growling of lyrics best revealed in the minimal environment of a drumless guitar/electric/bass trio; son a master of the falsetto, voice angelic, soulful, most at home with a simple electric accompaniment.

And as the irony of the universe typically unfolds, they died far too early, robbing the world of eccentric aesthetic lights. Tim at twenty-eight by a foolish overdose of heroin after an imbecilic dare from a so-called friend; Jeff only two years older after a strangely inspired urge to swim in a river in full clothing without a smiling return. The question always resounds, applicable to all except Bob Dylan and a handful of other still-living prodigies: why do the good die so young, and aesthetic cripples live on in their wake? I can hear the harrowing echo even in written form as I wrote those very words.

These are two songs that have, quite simply, changed my life. And each, because of the yearning of beauty coupled with them, are rarely not accompanied with prayers on my part: oh Lord, let me move the world with words or voice or actions in a similar way. Let my life be a song sung with such passion.

Listen and let your prayers resonate the same. The electric surge and shiver of life. That's the main feeling attached to these performances, the same dive beyond self, the same yearning beyond words. There is no day too terrible that isn't completely turned on its head during the sublime experience of such unseen souls.