Songfacts®:

• At a 1993 show at the New York club Sin-é, Buckley said this song is about "not feeling so bad about your own mortality when you have true love." This can be heard on the 2003 release Live at Sin-é. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Lindsey - Anderson, SC
• "Grace" was the album's first single, and it was also released as a video. Buckley performed the song for a long time before he recorded it, and an early demo appears on an album he made with Gary Lucas that was released posthumously called Songs to No One 1991-1992. Lucas and Buckley were part of a project called Gods & Monsters when they wrote this song; they also collaborated on the Grace track "Mojo Pin." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ruth - Hobart, Australia
• Buckley died in 1997 when he drowned in a river at age 30. His father, Tim Buckley, died of a drug overdose at 28, but Jeff was in good spirits at the time and the drowning was accidental (he was wearing heavy boots when he jumped in, making it difficult to return to shore).
  
  This song deals with death, as he sings:
  
  It's my time coming
  I'm not afraid to die
  
  Later in the song, he even alludes to drowning, although metaphorically:
  
  I feel them drown my name
  So easy to know and forget with this kiss
  I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow
  
  The lyrics sound unsettling in light of his death, but the entire album is soaked through with themes of loss.
• Jeff Buckley wrote the lyrics after saying goodbye to his girlfriend at the airport one rainy day. "It's about not fearing death, or fearing any of those countless slings and arrows that you suffer sometimes on this Earth, because somebody loves you," he said. "You're not afraid to go."
  
  "And it's just about life sometimes being so long," Buckley added. "At the time I was anticipating leaving Los Angeles for New York. So I was waiting to go. I'm not afraid to go, I'm not afraid to die, I'm not afraid to go away from this place or from any place but it just goes so slow. And I had somebody who loved me in New York. A lot. And it was amazing. It still is."
  
  Sadly, Buckley's passing came all too soon.
• In conversation with Songfacts, Gary Lucas stated that he originally wrote the song as an instrumental guitar piece. Buckley later added lyrics and melody. "I invited him into my group," Lucas said. "I had the group already, Gods & Monsters. I started it in '89. In '91, I met Jeff on a tribute to his father, Tim Buckley. It was in Brooklyn, and the organizer said, 'I think you should collaborate with him, you guys would be great together.' So, when we got together, right away we bonded. He said to me, 'I love your guitar playing. I loved you with Captain Beefheart.'
  
  So, I was like, 'Well, that's really cool. Wow, man, that's great, a young person.' Then I heard him sing and I'm like, 'Oh my god.' Right away, I thought he could be the great singer I've been looking for. He said he would do it, one thing led to another, and he was in. Then I needed to write some music and I came up with 'Grace' and 'Mojo Pin' as instrumental guitar pieces. Sent them to him and he came back to New York and he had perfect lyrics and a perfect melody for each instrumental. And that is how they started."
• Mark Foster of Foster The People told NME September 8, 2012 that the song contains his favorite lyric. Said Foster: "He drowned, and in this song it seems like he's talking about drowning, which used to make me cry, because I couldn't believe he was dead, and that he was talking about it in the song, like a self-fulfilling prophecy."
• Gary Lucas' instrumental piece was originally titled "Rise Up to Be." He recalled the story of the song to Uncut magazine:
  
  "I would compile pieces onto tape and mail them to Jeff in LA. Jeff called me as soon as he got them and said, 'They're beautiful, I'm gonna go to work on them.'
  
  He came over next time he was in New York, on a very humid steamy night, and said, 'You know that one called 'Rise Up to Be?' Now it's called 'Grace.' He whipped out a notebook and started singing. We were on the same wavelength; it was like a supernatural collaboration."