Track of the Week: Tim Buckley, "Song To The Siren"

I made it back from my grandmother's funeral in Nebraska today after many flight delays and the fun that is bringing twin toddlers on an airplane for a few hours.  I was lucky enough to see many family members I hadn't seen in years this weekend, and I hope that we can get together outside of funerals soon.

Perhaps it was because my children were such a distraction that the true torrent of grief didn't start coming out of me until tonight.  It is not easy to face the passing of a person who I loved so dearly and who played such an important role in my life.  At times like these, I turn to the balm of bourbon and sad music, as I am right now, up too late on a Sunday night, unable to sleep.

Tim Buckley crafted some beautiful songs in his day, but perhaps none more so than "Song To The Siren."  It is a song that always stops me dead in my tracks, and demands to be listened to with full attention.  The Larry Beckett lyrics are, as usual, poetic and resistant to easy interpretation.  One could read it as a lamentation about giving oneself over to love, and it all ending in pain and devastation.  I hear it differently, as an acceptance of death's embrace.  We all eventually have to go to sail to that undiscovered country on the far shore, a fact that is on my mind a lot this week.