I Heard You Singing

"by jazmin49 on 09-10-2007 @ 08:01:52 PM at the beginning of a live performance of this song jimmy said it was about loved ones who passed away. about the positivity and strength people can bring into our lives."

I can see that... but by reading the lyrics, I would think it was about one person in particular: Jeff Buckley. From what I understand Jimmy and Jeff were very close and worked on projects together all the time. If you listen to Ours AND Jeff Buckley, you will see where Jimmy's influence comes from......

After all, it was Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley that sang "Hallelujah" - and knowing that Jimmy was involved with the latter, it only makes sense that he's taking about Jeff. It probably just hurts him too much to think or talk about Jeff since his death in 1997; hence the reason he classifies it "loved ones".

at the beginning of a live performance of this song jimmy said it was about loved ones who passed away. about the positivity and strength people can bring into our lives.

stop thinking it's okay, things are gonna change you can't go on like this again you can't avoid the day ***YOU'RE THE STAR THAT LIGHTS OUR WAY

I heard you singing I heard you sing you sang to us you said hallelujah how'd we lose a saint ourselves

stop drinking it to waste things have lost their taste the light that circled round your face is gone and now replaced with a darker tone, AGAIN

I heard you singing I heard you sing you sang to us you said hallelujah how'd we lose a saint ourselves

are we better on our own are we better on our own

was I good was I brave did I throw it all away there's a light in the CRACK he's never coming back I got lost in the wind and I messed up everything,

till I heard you singing I heard you sing you sang to us you said hallelujah how'd we lose a saint ourselves

I heard you singing heard you sing you sang

=)

I found it! Straight from wikipedia.com:

"Jimmy was close with late musician Jeff Buckley before his death and wrote the song 'I Heard You Singing' for him."

Also, I found this clip, about a different song; but if you read the transcript, Jimmy personally talks about his emotional ties to Jeff:

You actually have to read the transcript on the video's "info" link because to audio is a little muffled.... Here's a copy of the transcription:

From Youtube.com: This is from the 6/24/07 Memphis show at Newby's. Jimmy talks about Jeff Buckley, which is something he doesn't do too often. A true gem.

Transcription:

About 8 years later, I had taken a break from singing. I felt like our music had become a little too self-serving and that we were doing it for the wrong reasons. During that time a friend of mine asked me "Are you sure you don't know this guy Jeff that just put this record out?" We were like "No we don't him personally, we know of him, we know his music, but we don't know him." Basically, I thought it was strange that we didn't know each other, and we had probably crossed each other's paths so many times in New York City and played maybe a lot of the same places and sounded so similar to some people, we thought it was strange. I got know him shortly before he died, I was to come down here to Memphis and spend some time with him as he was writing and recording his new record. Race came in my place, because I could not get off from work and I was home actually working on songs. So, long story short, I was not Jeff's roadie...he was a friend of mine, and tonight we sing for him and his spirit, his body that he left here in Memphis, but his spirit that lives on in all of us and so many people still to come in the future. We don't come here to Memphis often because it's a difficult place for me to come to emotionally, but thank you all for being here tonight and supporting our music and seeing through any of the shit that people say. We realize it's not easy for anybody. It wasn't easy for him when he started with all of the comparisons to his dad, Piaf, Nina Simone, and all this stuff and he kept going through it, and we're going to our best to do that as well. This is a song that in a moment of feeling like stopping music altogether, this song came out and became a catalyst for us to record another record, it's called "Ran Away To Tell The World."