Memphis Skyline Lyrics

This song is a tribute to the late singer Jeff Buckley, who drowned in Memphis in the Wolf River (a tributary of the Mississippi) on May 29, 1997. The two met briefly in the 1990s when Wainwright was an up-and-coming act. By this time, Buckley had already released his first album Grace, and was well on his way to stardom. He has said that he had been irritated that Buckley played at Sin-é, a café on the Lower East Side, as Wainwright had been rejected three times by the club. The two met several months prior to Buckley's drowning, during a gig by Wainwright. Buckley helped out with some technical problems, and the two chatted over beers for a few hours. The song references "Hallelujah", a Leonard Cohen song covered by Buckley and later by Wainwright.