My Song of the Day is “The Sky Is A Landfill” by Jeff Buckley. It’s off his posthumously-released album Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, which came out in May of 1998.
Such a beautiful and talented musician was lost when Jeff Buckley drowned one year earlier at age 30. 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” to the ethereal vibrato Buckley employs for his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The latter version, of the 1994 album “Grace,” is less somber and airier, though as erotically charged 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.
And why not? His father, folk rock legend Tim Buckley, 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.
The elder Buckley, if you haven’t heard of him, wrote, among other
So whether it’s his painful biography tormenting him or widespread political corruption, falsity, complacency, mediocrity and increasing cultural ennui– “The Sky is a Landfill” ( a remarkable image) iis an exercise in loud-quiet loud dynamics and pure fuck-you rock. The guitars get heavy and aggressive. And Buckley is aggressive in his airing of grievances.
Buckley’s lyrics, full of biting metaphor, are as contemptuous as those of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” which Bowie 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.” And what a brave and defiant final line, a rebel’s salvo: “I have no fear of this machine.”
His death was sad, but he left a stunning musical catalog, including his version of The Smiths’ “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side,” which is among the best Smith’s covers I’ve encountered.
–Sarah Torribio
See more songs of the day curated by Sarah Torribio HERE
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