Jeff Buckley Posthumously Earns First Top 100 Hit from TikTok Virality 29 Years After Death

Jeff Buckley posthumously hit the Billboard Hot 100 nearly three decades after his tragic death.

Billboard announced on Tuesday, Jan. 27, that Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” hit No. 97 for the first time this week. 

Buckley’s 1994 hit has garnered newfound fans, thanks to TikTok and the recent trend of using the song to accompany various videos. The trending audio includes Buckley singing the bridge: “It’s never over/ My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder/ It’s never over/ All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her/ It’s never over/ All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter/ It’s never over/ She’s the tear that hangs inside my soul forever/ Oh, but maybe I’m just too young/ To keep good love from going wrong.”

The acoustic ballad was featured on the late musician’s first and only studio album, Grace, which was released in 1994. The album became a platinum seller, and peaked at No. 149 in June 1995. 

In April 2025, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” reached new heights and debuted on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart at No. 22. 

The album then hit a resurgence in 2025 — with help from social media and the July 2025 documentary about the late singer, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. By December 2025, Grace hit No. 82 on the Billboard 200.

The July documentary provided an intimate look at the singer’s life and career before his death in 1997. Buckley died at 30 after drowning in a Memphis river.

At the time of his death, Buckley had moved to Memphis to write in solitude and the day of his death, he was to start recording his second record, My Sweetheart the Drunk. But he stopped off at a tributary adjacent to the Mississippi and while sober and fully clothed, he waded into the water. 

A wake from a passing riverboat pulled him under. Authorities found his body six days later, and an autopsy later determined he had one beer and no drugs in his system. His death was ruled accidental.

His mother, Mary Guibert, told PEOPLE how her son “wanted to live to an old age.” 

“He fantasized about being onstage in a wheelchair. He envisioned a life in which he could put his guitar on his shoulder, and people would want to hear him sing, and he could write whatever was in his soul,” she said. “And that would be all life would ask of him.”

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While his life was tragically cut short, his impact on the music industry extended far beyond his death. Adele, Radiohead, Lana Del Rey and Coldplay’s Chris Martin (who said Buckley’s music was “responsible for us being a band”) all point to him as inspiration.

“Other people cry about the artist loss. And I do think his art was a gift to the world,” Rebecca Moore, Buckley’s partner and muse, told PEOPLE. “But for me, it was like the gift of him.” Moore added that audiences were “lucky” to receive his “beautiful gift,” which she said “triumphed over a lot of personal things.”