Such a beautiful and talented musician was lost when Jeff Buckley drowned in 1997 at age 30. As a result of his untimely death, he’s an icon, an anti-hero, and forever young.
He was also an astoundingly talented singer, songwriter and guitarist. His voice ranges from a falsetto that purposely rivals the famously tear-jerking warble of Edith Piaf to the angry snarl of “The Sky is a Landfill” and from the bedroom-soul of “Everybody Here Wants You” to the ethereal vibrato he employs for his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
The latter song, off the 1994 album “Grace,” is less somber and airier rendition of “Hallelujah,” though just as erotically and emotionally committed.
Back to “The Sky is a Landfill.” This song represents a side of Jeff Buckley that I think is less known. The angry Jeff Buckley. The Jeff Buckley who’d had it. The very nearly grunge Jeff Buckley.
So whether it’s his painful biography that’s tormenting him or widespread political corruption, “The Sky is a Landfill”–the title itself a remarkable image–is an exercise in loud-quiet loud dynamics and pure fuck-you ethos. The guitars get heavy and aggressive. And Buckley is aggressive in his airing of grievances.
And why not? His father, folk legend Tim Buckley–known for his “Song for the Siren,” later covered by the Cocteau Twins–died of a heroin and morphine overdose when Jeff and his brother Taylor were very young. Addiction is a disease but to its victims, it can look a lot like rejection.
Buckley’s lyrics, full of biting metaphor, are as contemptuous of those of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” performed as his word-weary alien persona Ziggy Stardust. But Buckley’s contempt lacks Bowie’s stylish remove. In “The Sky is Landmine,” Jeff Buckley is spitting mad and wants you to know it.
He sings, “Our mutilation is to gain from the system. Turn your head away from the screen, oh people, it will tell you nothing more…Throw off your shame of being slave to the system.”
And then comes a moment of near blasphemy, politically speaking. “I see you take another drag. One nation bends to kiss the hag. The sky is a landfill…I have no fear of this machine!”
–Sarah Torribio
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