You and I is a posthumously released collection of ten songs (eight of which are covers) Jeff Buckley chose as a showcase for Columbia Records in 1993. They have lived in the vaults of Columbia Records for the past twenty-three years. Up until the point of these recordings, Buckley’s career was that of a cover artist, gradually working on his own material, performing often at venues in Lower Manhattan, such as Sin-é. Despite vast interest, Buckley was apprehensive about signing with a record label. Eventually he signed with Columbia and recorded what would be his only studio album, the otherworldly Grace, in 1994. An album David Bowie chose as a desert island album, an album whose release saw Bob Dylan knighting Buckley as “one of the great song writers of this decade,” and an album that convinced Rolling Stone that Buckley was one of the greatest singers of all time.
Buckley’s covers of Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin, The Smiths, and other artists, are all stamped with Buckley’s trademark whirlwind of overwhelming vocals and all-encompassing sound. Each cover transparently translates Buckley’s love and admiration of the original artists and the songs themselves. The album’s ironic, bittersweet highlight is a cover of The Smiths’ “I Know It’s Over”, You and I‘s finale. Buckley sings of a romance gone awry while delivering a heart-wrenching repeated message of “Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head,” conceding “I know it’s over.”
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