Jeff Buckley has posthumously landed his first Billboard Hot 100 entry, thanks to a surge in popularity of his 1994 track “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” on social media.
The song, which appeared on the singer’s only album, Grace, debuted at No. 97 on the charts, Billboard announced on Tuesday.
According to the publication, the song, which was never released as an official single, was streamed 3.8 million times in the US over a week-long period between 16 and 22 January. Billboard attributed the song’s resurgence to its use on platforms like TikTok, where its haunting, emotional intro has been overlaid on heartrending and introspective clips.
Buckley, who drowned in 1997 at the age of 30, wrote the song about the downfall of his relationship with girlfriend Rebecca Moore. “I wrote this song while lying listening to the telephone in my apartment,” Buckley told concertgoers in Italy in July 1995. “But she never called.”
“Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” first appeared on the Hot Rock and Alternative Songs charts last April, then dropped off. It returned a month ahead of the August 2025 release of Amy Bergman’s critically acclaimed documentary, It’s Never Over: Jeff Buckley, and has remained on the chart ever since, peaking at No 12.
For several years, Buckley worked as a session musician and focused on expanding his repertoire, discovering Sufi devotional music in addition to artists such as Van Morrison, Bill Evans and Nina Simone. In 1991, he performed at a tribute to his late father, musician Tim Buckley, at a Brooklyn church. His set included a cover of his father’s song “I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain,” which Tim wrote for his former wife and young son, having left them when Buckley was just six months old.
Buckley first gained a notable following in the early Nineties, performing at venues in New York City’s East Village. He signed with Columbia Records in 1992 and released his debut album, Grace, in 1994.
In 1996, he began production on his second album, under the working title My Sweetheart the Drunk. The following year, he relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, and resumed working on the album that February. However, in May 1997, while waiting for his band’s arrival from New York, he went for a swim in the Wolf River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and was swept underwater by the wake of a passing tugboat and drowned.
There have been numerous compilations, live recordings and demos released following his death, including 1998’s Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.
