Morning Glory by Tim Buckley

Album: Goodbye and Hello (1968)

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Songfacts®:

This song, about a hobo who approaches the home of an individual and spurns the patronizing attitude of the homeowner, was inspired by Buckley's early childhood. He lived in a small southern California community that was adjacent to a hobo camp.
Buckley is the father of the popular '90s performer, Jeff Buckley. Both father and son died tragically: Tim from a drug overdose and Jeff from drowning.
Tim left Jeff's mother before he was born, and he died when Jeff was eight. Father and son never got to know one another and Jeff held some resentment towards his father over the abandonment. >>
Suggestion credit:
Bob - Southfield, MI, for above 2

Comments: 3

Robert W. from ArizonaLinda Ronstadt said she, Tim and others lived in a communal house on Hart Avenue in Santa Monica near the beach. She called it "a darling little cottage." The house is pictured on the back cover of her third Stone Poneys album where she, Tim and others are on the front stairwell. She said Tim would move out and she would move in. Then she would move out and Tim would move back in, etc. Fleeting means "lasting for a very short time" and that is the house Tim is referring to in his song Morning Glory. Linda included that song on that album but changed the name to "Hobo." Yes, it is a very haunting song and an old favorite of mine.
Claude from BerkeleyLyrics by Mr. Beckett, right?
So why would a hobo camp inspire Tim's words? You may have a point in that Tim & Larry shared a lot of youth experience.
Tim stated in a live concert, "This is about a hobo beatin' up on a college kid..."
College could be a key here. A literary guy like Larry takes an incident and turns it into a dramatic narrative both revelatory & intensely insightful of a young man's coming of age in relation to a shadow figure of greater age, a reverse mentor!
Who knows if LSD-25 may have supplied a touch of sensitivity and catharsis to this "rejection"... (or manipulation, as the case may have been.)
Other hobo(es)...
Dylan: "The hobo got you high..." (censored in the Dylan songbook to read, "The hobo jumped up...)
"Only a hobo, but one more is gone..."
(Rod Stewart?)
Mitchell Klein from 21228I find the song Morning Glory haunting, sad / depressing and highly curious. I want to know the meaning to it and
the explaination of terms like " fleeting house " and ancients' fear. This song, performed by Blood, Sweat & Tears
has always lingered for nearly 50 years !

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