“Silver Leaves”
by Sky Sunlight Saxon Universal Stars Peace Band
1984 song
"Silver Leaves" is a chugging hard-rock blast from Sky Saxon’s 1984 LP Masters Of Psychedelia. Over coked-up riffing from his unidentified band Sky adds a double-tracked vocal, a valiant effort considering how rambling and offhand (and apparently extemporaneous) his singing is. But no, those words were set in stone because he had to repeat them. The double tracking doesn’t work exactly as it would on someone else’s song, of course: Sky doesn’t stay in time with himself.
But what does happen on "Silver Leaves" is that his laments for hungry dogs and bewildering imagery of silver leaves falling “down in Germantown” get elevated by the competition between the two Skys. As the listener tries to keep up with the words, untangling the disorienting effect of the unmatched vocal overdubs, one finds oneself concentrating harder. This only makes the message take deeper root in the consciousness. Not that the message is clear, exactly, but that’s just part of the mystery. Sky sleuths will love picking apart "Silver Leaves", and may have to loft the devil’s sign and cut loose with some headbanging along the way.
