Leaf & Tree

Song story & origins

Introduction

During Earth Week, I pulled together a 15-song playlist of pieces about appreciating and protecting the earth and focused on two related works: the song “Leaf and Tree” (from Gravitate, 2018) and the instrumental “Be a Tree” (from Two Weeks in April, 2017). What follows keeps all the reflections from that session—minus show/episode chatter—so the emphasis stays on the stories, the lyrics, and the why behind the music.

Where the song came from

While shaping Gravitate through 2018, I realized I was one song short and dug out an old notebook of lyrics (mostly late ’80s/early ’90s). I found “Leaf and Tree,” likely written around 1990–91. I’d never recorded it then, but I’d played it enough to remember the melody, so I built a new arrangement. Because the lyric carries social-awareness/environmental themes, I leaned into a late ’60s/early ’70s feel—warm, slightly psychedelic colors that echo that era’s earth-minded hope.

What the song is saying

The opening admits I’m hardly the first to sing the beauty of trees—and pleads not to be the last. Part of what makes “goodbye with such strange ease” possible is our growing disconnection from the natural world. I worry about that for kids: Will my children know the place where they come from—that their feet were made for grass? If we raise children only in man-made spaces, it’s harder for them to love (and therefore protect) the living world that formed us.

The animal images push that forward: the she-wolf who will fight for her pups, the eagle who builds high so the young can learn to fly. Their instincts are for the next generation; ours should be, too. That’s why the question about home stings: are we acting as though home—this planet—is just “something from the past”?

In the moment I shared these reflections (mid-social distancing), the air in many places had turned noticeably cleaner as travel and industry slowed; gasoline had plunged, and crude oil had even dipped below $0 for a time. That strange snapshot was a reminder: we have the power to damage quickly—and also the power to change course.

Arrangement choices (and why the song ends “abruptly”)

I styled the track to nod at ’60s/’70s protest/folk textures, then let the mid-song instrumental roam a little psychedelic. The song ends hard—no fade—by design. On the album it drops straight into a politically edged follow-up (“Ballad of Donald”), but even taken as a single, the cut-off serves the theme: some losses don’t announce themselves with a fade; you wake up and something is just gone. That urgency belongs in the record.

Closing reflection

The ’60s/’70s gave us a spark; today we know more and can do more. The invitation is practical and local: get outside, put your feet in the grass, notice what the living world is saying, and act for those who come after—your kids and grandkids if you have them, and the future neighbors you haven’t met yet. If we stay attentive, we can leave them a home at least as wonderful as the one we were given.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx