Songfacts®:

• This song features the last studio performance of Jeff Buckley before his death less than a year later. Patti Smith told Mojo she was introduced to the singer-songwriter by Tom Verlaine, who contributed guitar towards Gone Again. She recalled: "I told him we were recording: Why don't you come by? He was listening to Fireflies and said, 'Could I try something or this?' He left and came back with a strange shaped box. He took out this Indian instrument, and played it (She makes a high delicate humming sound)."
  
  Smith added that after Buckley died, his mother passed the Indian instrument onto her. "When they found him in the water, he had a tiny key in his pocket," she said. "It was for this instrument. The only thing he played it on was my record. He played it so intently. And it's got a broken string. But it did work. It was the firefly on Fireflies."