Jeff Buckley swoons the crowd with a gut-wrenching performance of “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” in a previously unreleased live video. The song is the seventh track off the late singer’s legendary debut Grace, which turns 25 today.
Filmed at the Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 19, 1994, the black and white clip features Buckley walking towards the venue on a snowy sidewalk, guitar case in hand. He performs at soundcheck wearing a coonskin-like cap, later launching into the track before a packed crowd. “Maybe I’m too young/To keep good love from going wrong,” he sings, “But tonight you’re on my mind so/You’ll never know.”
The song is about Buckley’s disintegrating relationship with his girlfriend Rebecca Moore, who Buckley had met at a tribute to his late father, folk singer Tim Buckley. Moore would become the muse and inspiration behind Grace as a whole. “I wrote this song while lying listening to the telephone in my apartment,” Buckley said while performing in Italy in July 1995. “But she never called.”
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Grace, the Jeff Buckley estate released a reissue of the album as well as a digital expansion of the songwriter’s catalogue. Four live albums have been released — Live at Wetlands, New York, NY 8/16/94, Live from Seattle, WA, May 7, 1995, Cabaret Metro, Metro, Chicago, IL, May 13th 1995 and Live at Columbia Records Radio Hour — as well as over 50 rare tracks that include the demo “Sky Blue Skin,” one of the last songs Buckley ever recorded before his untimely death in 1997.