[Nixxxed]

Originally Posted by catinthedark

Can't believe I'm gonna do this to my hometown boy, Rufus, but if you want THE essential version of Hallelujah, you need Jeff Buckley's. It's on his album "Grace." He way outdid Leonard Cohen on his composition.

PS I do love Rufus, too! And his mom and aunt (The McGarrigles), and his sister (Martha Wainwright). Frighteningly brilliant songwriters, all of them.

Rufus loved Jeff too. The song "Memphis Skyline" on Rufus' latest CD (Want two) was written about Jeff and his death...

http://rufuswainwright.com/about/fea...C+Australia%29

One of the album's more personal tracks, 'Memphis Skyline', mourns the death of another groundbreaking tunesmith, Jeff Buckley.

"I had a real opera-style relationship to him," Wainwright explains. "Firstly, I only met him once and I had hated him for years before then because I was jealous of his success. And his hair.

"Meeting him was a pivotal moment in my life in terms of releasing that jealousy and envy and harbouring bad feelings toward another artist - which is all pretty futile.

"And then he died a month later. A lot of people compared us when my first album came out and certain hardcore Buckley fans hated my guts, thinking I was trying to usurp his throne."