Song Notes: Leaves

LEAVES
(download)

Scott:  I'm sure this song had a title, but I don't have it written down anywhere.  I think it was "Leaves" but I don't remember for sure.

I figured that if the Beastie Boys could just appropriate the drums from "When the Levee Breaks", then I could too, and it was some kind of artistic allusion.  Though not really a Zeppelin kind of guy, I thought it was one of the coolest drum parts ever, and listeners would get it.

Led Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks (excerpt)

The song has only one riff that goes on forever.  At first I felt guilty about this, as it seemed like lazy songwriting, but ultimately I just liked it how it was and didn't try too hard to shoehorn additional riffs into the song.  I decided to actually sing and try to let that be the interesting part.  So, Deron and I were just playing the same thing over and over while I sang.  Then we asked Amy if she had something she could play over the top of it which might sound different, and she came up with the incredible keyboard part.  Again, she comes up with this stuff that makes us sound like a real band.  I have a feeling that Amy was more musically knowledgable with regards to classic rock (from her dad, maybe), and certainly a real musician with understanding of theory.  Anyway, it was years after we created this song before I heard other Zeppelin songs like Kashmir and wondered if she was intentionally riffing off of my stolen Zeppelin drum beat.  I would have never gotten the reference at the time, but I'm guessing the rest of the band did.

About the lyrics... during the 10th grade I got into the habit of skipping school.  There were a lot of fields in Plano which were the undeveloped subdivisions of the future.  So I would skip school and find a clump of trees or bushes or a ditch to spend the day in, listening to headphones, reading, sleeping, and obsessing about how much it sucked to be alive.  The song lyrics are basically a suicide fantasy about dying in a forest, and I was reminiscing about those days.

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I while re-listening to this tape, I noticed that the similarities between this song, structurally and lyrically, to PIL's "Poptones" are uncanny.  I mean, singing in falsetto about dying in a forest over a single, looping riff.  I first heard "Poptones" in 2003, honest.  It is my favorite PIL song; maybe everyone's favorite.

Amy:  The repetition in this song conjures an expanse of landscape that never seems to end. Those fields in Plano had that quality. I always liked how, in the lyrics, the perception of being surrounded by eternally treacherous forces transforms into a peaceful feeling of surrendering to/making peace with those same forces (albeit through self-inflicted death). Friend or foe…it's mostly in your head.

I remember this photographed "leaf" of  lyrics very well; Scott made us each a copy. I remember the song title being "Leaves" too. I didn't realize what an awesome follow up to "Untitled" it was on the demo until today, 8/25/10; together, they make a fittingly mellow middle act that reflects the craft that Scott put into the song order.

Led Zeppelin - Kashmir (excerpt) 

His drum part did indeed prompt the evocation of "Kashmir" in my keyboard line, a product of growing up in a classic rock soundscape (thanks to my dad, yes). I found the meeting of references to be great fun!  I came up with the core melody and then decided to elaborate in certain spots as the song progressed: a theme-and-(ever-so-slight) variations.

Scott calls his vocals "falsetto," but they sound like full-fledged chest voice to me! :  You can always count on his melodic contours to mirror the message.

My dad punched in at 4:45", just before the first sounding of the final note by the guitar and bass…you can hear it if you listen closely.

Deron:  Really great after all these years! Everyone playing just right thing and well. Not only does it show off a great keys part by Amy, but illustrates Scott's great drum programming. He really was able to put humanity into every song. Definitely, the drum programming is a linchpin to the maturity and agelessness of the songs.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (excerpt)