Beyond SubUrbia: A View Through the Trees
Sonic Youth’s A Thousand Leaves at 25
It’s a tad unnerving to realise that a quarter century has passed since Sonic Youth released their final ‘mainstream’ album of the 1990s. Viewed another way, it’s rather difficult to accept that the said album is now closer in time to the height of the ’70s punk movement than what it is 2023. (And you thought grunge was a long time ago?!)
Hard as it may be to swallow, A Thousand Leaves hit record-store shelves in the spring of 1998 — the double vinyl version released in North America on the band’s own label on April 21st, and the CD version issued by DGC/Geffen on May 12th. According to conventional thought and most people’s criteria for counting, it was Sonic Youth’s twelfth studio album. It was also their first ‘mainstream’ release in two years and some eight months — the longest stretch between such SY studio albums at that point.
This is not to suggest that the band — Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley — had been simply vegetating or resting on its laurels since the release of the double-length Washing Machine in late September of ’95. With the money earned from headlining the ’95 Lollapalooza festival, they had had their own Echo Canyon studio constructed on Murray Street in Lower Manhattan. It was here that the band, while writing and developing the material that would become the new DGC album, had composed and recorded the first three experimental releases for their indie label’s new Perspective Musicales series: the EPs SYR 1 / Anagrama (released May, 1997) and SYR 2 / Slaapkamers met slagroom (released September, 1997), and the full-length SYR 3 / Invito al ĉielo (released March, 1998). It was at this new facility that they had also recorded three numbers for the soundtrack to SubUrbia, Richard Linklater’s Gen-X-focussed feature-length comedy-drama. All three of these numbers were included on the February ’97 soundtrack CD (along with the title track from Moore’s 1995 solo album Psychic Hearts); but only one of them, ‘Sunday’, would be revisited in the recording of A Thousand Leaves.
Benefitting from the limitless time that one’s own studio brings, the eleven tracks that would come to comprise the long-awaited double LP evolved from or alongside the Perspective Musicales material, over a period of several months. Six of these (mostly instrumental) works in progress were taped live at Sony Recording Studios in the spring of 1997, with three of them airing on PBS on August 9th as the first half of an episode of Sessions at West 54th. Like the Perspective Musicales releases, the album was self-produced with assistance from Wharton Tiers, whom the band had worked with fifteen years earlier on their Confusion Is Sex LP and its companion EP Kill Yr Idols. Also credited with “additional production” is Don Fleming of Velvet Monkeys and Gumball fame. Fleming, it is worth noting, had co-produced Hole’s 1991 debut (Pretty on the Inside) with Kim Gordon, and had worked in the producer role on singles by Gordon’s side project Free Kitten.
In terms of instrumentation, Gordon continued the transition from bassist to guitarist begun on Washing Machine; playing bass guitar on only two tracks (‘Sunday’ and ‘Hits of Sunshine’), and playing third guitar instead on all other tracks except one (‘Contre le sexisme’).
The album takes its title from references to “a thousand leaves” or “mille feuille” in three of its tracks. ‘Mille feuille’ translates from the French literally as “a thousand leaves”, and can also refer to the type of French pastry known in English-speaking countries as a vanilla or custard slice. According to Sonic Youth biographer David Browne, Mille Feuille was the originally intended title for the album, which was to feature “a cover photo of Moore holding a pastry” (Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, 2008). Whether Browne’s claims are based on reliable inside sources or sheer speculation is anyone’s guess; but the CD and all four record labels feature an X’ed-out title of Mille Feuille between the Sonic Youth name and A Thousand Leaves, and one of the photos in the CD booklet’s montage is a fuzzy image of Gordon with her head bowed down behind a large, colourful piece of cake. Apparently other working titles for the album included Hits of Sunshine and Ham Radio — the latter was instead translated into Esperanto (‘Radio-Amatoroj’) and applied to a lengthy track on SYR 3. Moore once acknowledged that the chosen title had been inspired on some level by that of poet Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), explaining that “that indivisible notion of art and nature is what I was getting at” (Spike Magazine, June 1st, 2000). But this came only after interviewer Andrew McCutchen had suggested the comparison. Furthermore, the three numbers containing the titular lyrics were all apparently written by Gordon.
Given the album’s title, the album’s front-cover art appears quite incongruous upon initial consideration, even by Sonic Youth standards. Used for the jacket’s front was American artist Marnie Weber’s Hamster Girl collage, which consists of an image of a human hand encircling a hamster juxtaposed with a photo of Weber herself at age ten, in bed and modelling sheets. Attached correspondingly to Weber’s head are what appear to be rodent or teddy-bear ears. (It should be noted that Weber has also recorded alternative rock albums, releasing her 1996 CD Cry For Happy on Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label.) The eerie artwork was said by Geffen album-cover designer Frank Olinsky to be “strange and creepy, but awesome” (Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, 2008).
The album’s back cover, lyrics sheet (double LP), booklet (CD) and j-card (cassette) feature photographic images that are somewhat more in keeping with the title; particularly those of shrub-covered estates, half-naked prepubescent girls in an oak-bordered field, Gordon shrouded by leafy plant cuttings, and the aforementioned cake before a bowing Gordon.
Although released in the spring, A Thousand Leaves is definitely an autumn album thematically and atmospherically. Besides the multiple references to leaves, there are mentions of snow, “harvest eyes”, “falling colors”, and “the colors turning brown”. As well, many of the settings are decidedly external, or natural — some might even say rural or pastoral. This is apparent in even a few of the song titles: ‘Hoarfrost’, ‘Wildflower Soul’, ‘Hits of Sunshine’. Right down to some of the photographs contained in the CD booklet and the LP insert, A Thousand Leaves evokes the countryside and town perimeters like no Sonic Youth album since 1985’s Bad Moon Rising.
Musically, compared to their four previous DGC/Geffen releases (even the boundary-pushing Washing Machine), the album features less feedback and looser, more relaxed guitar-picking spread out over generally longer, more laidback and sometimes more nuanced numbers. Several tracks display what might be described as a certain artful dreariness or bleakness. This is far from inappropriate given the autumnal settings and contemplative viewpoint. Even the album’s one major excursion into static and noise — the one that opens the album — reveals a far more pensive and apprehensive Sonic Youth than the band that rode the frantic, sometimes angry grunge wave of the early to mid ’90s.
‘Contre le sexisme’ (English: ‘Against Sexism’), introductory roars and hisses of static and all, kicks off the double-length album. Primarily a spoken-word piece by Gordon with music edited down from a much longer improvisational performance, it sets the tone for the rest of the mysterious record. References are made to Alice in Wonderland (“Oh Alice / Alice… / Come back — he’s just a kitten”) as the static rumbles over a lone noodling guitar, and down the rabbit hole the listener is taken. Heavy, clanking percussion enters the mix as the number approaches the two-and-a-half-minute mark. When Gordon’s vocal resumes, it’s to deliver the titular lyric for the first time. “A thousand leaves for your disguise…” she intones, switching to her trademark chanting voice. “A crazy wind will stir me too,” she chants a minute or so later as a gush of static rises in the left channel. Seconds after that, the number ends abruptly with Gordon announcing assuringly, “I am with you…”.
Coming on the heels of the album’s least conventional track is arguably the album’s most accessible one. Rerecorded for A Thousand Leaves, the nearly five-minute ‘Sunday’ is nearly three minutes shorter than the version that had been recorded for the Suburbia soundtrack. It is also coherently smoother and more up-tempo. Featuring vocals and dominant strumming by Moore, the number’s basic riff owes a lot to that of Helium’s ‘Skeleton’ (1995), frankly. This conspicuously 4/4 paean to “a perfect day for a quiet friend” served as the album’s only single and was one of only two tracks accommodated with a video.
Closing out side 1 of the double vinyl version is ‘Female Mechanic Now on Duty’. Previously known as ‘Static Overview’, it was one of the tracks that had been recorded in instrumental form for Sessions at West 54th. The seven-and-a-half-minute number undergoes multiples tempo and melody changes, and its somewhat crude construction from various takes — including the latter half of the Sessions at West 54th live performance — is discernible in the final product. It starts out as a grungy laidback groove with slightly raunchy guitar and lyrics to match. “I wanna move your switch / Make you go squish,” insists Gordon amidst the touches of wah-wah pedal. Then, around the three-minute mark, the drumming ceases and the guitars slow to a prolonged drone before Gordon chants momentarily (and ambivalently) about the crying habits of “modern women” and being hurt by lies. The tension lifts and the drums reemerge when the number segues haphazardly into a mellow melodic phase, and soon Gordon is chanting surrealistically about the elements and children seeking “shelter in the garden”. The titular lyrics are uttered for the second time when Gordon concludes the vocal segment with the cliff-hanging “A thousand leaves are left to stay and…”. The number then locks into a hypnotic jangly groove reminiscent of The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ before abruptly sputtering out with a duff guitar note.
Side 2 opens with Moore’s ‘Wildflower Soul’, a number that had been known simply as ‘Wildflower’ in its earlier, instrumental incarnation (a version of which had been recorded live at the Tibetan Freedom Concert the previous year and included on the subsequent 3-CD compilation). Just over nine minutes in length, the track is primarily a folkish ballad lurking somewhat deceitfully beyond a brief noisy intro of flipped-out guitars that recalls the opening to Dirty’s ‘100%’ six years earlier. Its tempo a study in arbitrary ebb and flow, the track is divided into two sections by a five-minute instrumental interlude of wah-wah-drenched upbeat jamming. Conceptually, the number is a bittersweet reflexion on the ageing process, with Moore observing that “old is magic growing” with a hint of melancholy and regret in his voice. His laconic lyrics also bemoan the “child lights” that “blow away” like “leaves falling to the water”, indirectly referencing the album title in the process.
Moore’s ballad is followed by a Ranaldo ballad that may very well be the best track on the album. Originally known as ‘Woodland Ode’, the number was apparently inspired by a walk in the snow that the songwriter took with his wife, artist Leah Singer, while visiting her parents in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, 2008). Hence the song’s “view thru the trees to a couple standing in the snow”. Lyrics like the following, in fact, capture the essence of a New York City band that is momentarily shifting their attention to the natural world and happenings on the town outskirts:
high above like a spider
the colors turning brown
freeways passing by us
I took yr hand and we knelt down
I should also point out that the lines “wheels paddle wheels paddle movement as we go / trees passing trees passing signs along the road” bring to mind the “boxcars boxcars boxcars” of epic poem ‘Howl’ (1956) by American poet Allen Ginsberg [see below in regards to ‘Hits of Sunshine’]. On a musical level, the track is suitably sullen and slightly eerie, with touches of wah-wah and a rhythm guitar line of low, pondering notes. There are also brief changes in melody and tempo throughout the five-minute number, reflecting the nuances and idiosyncrasies of the lyrics (e.g., the aforementioned ‘wheels paddle…’ verse). It’s also interesting to note that the song’s thrice-sung line, “We’ll know where when we get there”, would later serve as the title for a 2009 experimental album by Ranaldo and wife Singer, released in France to coincide with their art show at a French gallery.
Record 1 closes with the suggestively titled ‘French Tickler’, a moderately upbeat Gordon-sung number that might be described both musically and vocally as relaxed and even insouciant. True, there are two brief sections — one after each of the two performances of the chorus — that are marked by discordant guitar, melodic variation and angry chanting; but, for the most part, the track can be considered a laidback grungy rocker. As one should only expect, Gordon’s lyrics — which appear to have been written from the perspective of a prostitute or porn star caught in a world of pimps and addiction — suit the mood and intensity of the given music and vocal style. Appropriately, she croons repeatedly about her “free time” during the carefree main body of the number, and demonstrates a poetic playfulness with lines such as “forever fabulistic, blowup, pleasuristic”. Similarly appropriate, she belts the grotesque likes of “I can’t believe this could happen to me / caught inside someone’s knee” during the angry post-chorus sections. Although ‘French Tickler’ is one of only two or three tracks that do not reference nature or imply a non-urban setting, it does contain the third mention of the album’s title, albeit en français: for some reason, the soft chanting of “mille feuille” four times serves mysteriously as the number’s understated chorus.
The second half of A Thousand Leaves opens with what is arguably the album’s centrepiece. ‘Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsberg)’ is Moore’s eleven-minute tribute to the titular American Beat poet who had died at age 70 in April of the previous year. The track features what are arguably Moore’s best lyrical contributions to the album, with references to LSD, dreams, painters, and the dream of a painting in which “the colors run off”, serving as a springboard for a large chunk of the number’s surreal visions; e.g.:
blue is bashful
green is my goal
yellow girls are running backwards
until the nextime
with six hits of sunshine
the lights will blind us with blues in haiku
One is reminded of the fact that Ginsberg, in 1955, was introduced to his longtime lover Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010) via Orlovsky’s depiction in Nude with Onions, a 1954 painting by Robert LaVigne (1928–2014). One is also reminded of Blues and Haikus, the 1959 album of readings by Beat writer Jack Kerouac (1922–1969). Regardless of what Moore’s specific inspirations were, the guitarist delivers the number’s five verses and brief (but lyrically varying) refrain in a soft voice imbued with passion and genuinely engrossing. Equally engrossing is the extended guitar break between the fourth rendering of the chorus and the final verse. For close to eight minutes, Moore and Ranaldo unleash a veritable asteroid belt of careening, glimmering wah-wah spheroids for the listener to float slowly and wondrously through. Complete with Gordon and Shelley’s unwavering backbone of bass and drums, the lengthy section recalls the extended psychedelic jams of Cream, Iron Butterfly and even the Grateful Dead.
The second of Ranaldo’s two contributions is ‘Karen Koltrane’, a multi-faceted track that clocks in at over nine minutes. Conceived of primarily as a bittersweet ballad, the number’s lyrics supposedly focus on a former girlfriend from the songwriter’s college days whose life had taken a sad downturn; e.g.:
Karen’s leaving for the snow
Somewhere to somewhere… blind
She cut the silver lining in my soul
I was tethered to her for a time
In addition to the three regular verses, there is a lyrical section at the track’s midpoint that features a melodic refrain. “Will she stay forever? / Are we still together?” asks Ranaldo repeatedly, with Moore (and maybe Gordon?) commenting harmoniously in a laconic semi-refrain that consists of mysterious words and phrases: “Bedside… Flashlight… Bedside… Karen stay…”. Also notable is Ranaldo’s murmuring of “A love supreme…” during the lead-up to the final verse, recalling John Coltrane’s 1965 album of the same name and his momentary chanting of the same phrase on the titular track. The song demonstrates similar eccentricities on a musical level. Following the first verse, for example, there is a somewhat lengthy outpouring of rather shrill and discordant notes, and a subtle increase in tempo leading into the second verse. A longer and even more discordant display of note-picking takes place between the second verse and the refrain section. Complete with exotic percussion (clay drums?) in the background, this exercise actually recalls the instrumental title track from the band’s aforementioned SYR 1 / Anagrama EP. A more traditional guitar jam develops following the refrain section, one that endures for close to two minutes before subsiding. A substantial decrease in tempo occurs in time for the final verse, and the track subsequently fizzles out at the approach of the eight-and-a-half-minute mark, as if the result of a faulty or jammed tape. In the wake of the ‘tape jam’, a coda of sorts ensues. This consists of a noisy improvisational section that recalls some of the SYR recordings and even the early Mothers Of Invention before fading to silence. (I should also note that Ranaldo and the band would return to the subject of ‘Karen’ four years later in the form of Murray Street’s ‘Karen Revisited’ — or ‘Karenology’, as the number’s been curiously referred to since shortly after release.)
Side 4 of the double vinyl release opens with ‘The Ineffable Me’, an upbeat number that began life as ‘Proud Marie’ — an instrumental that would evolve into the nearly eighteen-minute title track from the SYR 2 / Slaapkamers met slagroom EP. Given Gordon’s teasing and sometimes over-the-top vocals, the track might be seen as something of a companion to side 2’s ‘French Tickler’. Unlike the earlier track, however, the number in question features lyrics written primarily by Moore — which undoubtedly explains their male perspective that often borders on the pornographic; e.g.: “It’s a cushy job / a pussy’s job / A cum junkie’s job / makes my dick throb”. Like the rest of the lyrics throughout the main body of the number, these lines are indicative of a song structure which might be described as a blues variation. Such a variation entails an AAAB verse form, with the B phrase serving as the ‘turnaround’. (Although one might be tempted to perceive of the verses as couplets that feature strong caesuras, given the nature of some of the lines; e.g., “I’m preconceived / preternaturally”.) After several verses there is a lull in the rhythm as Shelley switches from drums to cymbals, and Gordon chants “Feel…ineffable” numerous times before delivering a spoken-word segment. If not completely adlibbed, then the recitation is most likely the singer’s creation that was added at the last minute — at least given its absence from the lyric sheet and its suggested female perspective:
The drama of my consciousness
Is that having lost the world
I try to recover myself
But in this moment… I am lost
It’s always blood, fear, politics, and money
I don’t know how to stop vomiting since I’ve been working in office…
A short guitar-led jam then ensues before the band returns to the main melody for the final verses. Following a gradual buildup of roaring guitar static and much groaning and other noises on the part of Gordon, the number sputters out as it nears the five-and-a-half-minute mark.
Like ‘The Ineffable Me’, Moore’s ‘Snare, Girl’ finds its origins in an instrumental that was more fully realised on SYR 2 (‘Stil’). Over six and a half minutes in length, the track is a surprisingly mellow affair from start to finish, yet features something of a ‘classic-rock’ vibe courtesy of the subtle wah-pedal overtones that bring the Clavinet or 1970s organs to mind. Even mellower are Moore’s vocals, which are so soft and gentle that one might be inclined to view the number retrospectively as the closest Sonic Youth ever came to recording a lullaby. One can only guess that Moore may have been channelling the early work of Leonard Cohen in his approach to this ballad. Appropriately, the lyrics demonstrate a gentle understanding and sentimental viewpoint, as Moore revisits the Ageing theme explored in ‘Wildflower Soul’ — this time from the perspective of an adult addressing a child; e.g.:
Hold out your hands
and take these palms I’ve been given
They are wild with beauty faded
and they can guide this child to heaven
The first vocal segment takes the form of a double verse followed by an understated chorus, and the second consists of a single verse and a lyrical variation on the said chorus. The vocal segments are separated by a two-minute interlude that features lead guitar of the most subtle variety. The latter segment is followed by a ninety-second outro similar in structure to the interlude.
A segmented, improv-driven Gordon track opens the album, and, appropriately enough, such a Gordon track closes it. Clocking in at a little over six minutes, ‘Heather Angel’ consists of three sections of near-equal duration. The initial section is basically a bittersweet ballad whose vibe is largely drawn from the same wah pedal that was used on the previous track. Shelley’s drumming is limited to sparse, incidental beats in the background as Gordon provides surreal glances into the world of the titular female, who is “somewhere / on the show” and “just want[s] to be alive / and go to the other…”. The second section is composed primarily of free-form playing and Gordon’s improvised spoken words and semi-scat sounds (e.g., “And you were shot in the name of it… / And then you’d see / Yeh yeh…”). The lines “And I fall for… / I would fall for you…” and repeated utterances of “Goodbye…” bring The Stooges’ ‘We Will Fall’ (1969) to mind. The following and final section is a grungy, upbeat and (apart from Gordon’s yells and unscripted shouts of “Here we go!”) instrumental segment that ultimately serves as an outro from the number and the album as a whole. Detectable throughout the section is a horn (Gordon’s trumpet?) or horn-like pedal effect. Mysteriously, no trumpet or sax player is credited in the liner notes, and the sound has never been accounted for. Equally mysterious is the origins of the number’s title and subject matter. Chris Habib has noted (at SonicYouth.com) that there was a British actress Heather Angel (1909–1986), and pointed out that at least one fan (Mark Allen) has alleged a similarity between the track’s lyrics and the plot or script of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou (1965), a film Gordon had apparently viewed on VHS in the mid 1990s.
Although the dubious state of the alternative rock market by 1998 didn’t warrant the release of multiple singles in multiple formats, there are still a number of band releases dating from that period that are directly related to A Thousand Leaves. Of course there is the album’s one and only single, an unedited version of ‘Sunday’, which was released on 7-inch vinyl and CD on the 14th of July. Featuring Gordon on vocals, a recording of a ‘leftover’ Kurt Cobain number, ‘Moist Vagina’, serves as the B-side of the vinyl edition. The CD version also contains a three-minute ‘radio edit’ of ‘Sunday’ (which was also released in the US as a standalone promo CD with different artwork) and a track from the Silver Session CD (see below), ‘Silver Panties’. There are Anagrama and Slaapkamers met slagroom, the two 1997 SYR EPs that contain the aforementioned instrumental ‘cousins’ of at least three of the album’s tracks. The latter record also includes ‘Herinneringen’, a three-and-a-half-minute experiment in low-key improv and multiple vocal tracks that is particularly notable for Gordon’s chanting of “Mille feuille” repeatedly. Also preceding the album were the band’s contributions to the SubUrbia soundtrack. In addition to the instrumental ‘Tabla in Suburbia’ and the Gordon-sung ‘Bee-Bee’s Song’, a quasi bossa nova, the CD includes a longer, more rambling early take on ‘Sunday’. There’s also Silver Session (for Jason Knuth), which was released exclusively on CD some two months later on the arbitrarily named Sonic Knuth Recordings label (i.e., SKR as opposed to SYR). Dedicated to a San Franciscan college-radio director who had committed suicide in recent months, the disc consists of a lengthy segment of roaring feedback that had been recorded as a lighthearted distraction during the vocal-overdub sessions for A Thousand Leaves and mixed down into eight separate tracks, each bearing a title beginning with the Warholesque ‘Silver’ (i.e., ‘Silver Panties’, ‘Silver Flower’, ‘Silver Wax Lips’, etc.).
As previously mentioned, videos were made for two of the tracks. Feature-length filmmaker Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo) directed Macaulay Culkin and his then-wife Rachel Miner in ‘Sunday’, which demonstrated extreme use of both slow- and fast-motion camera techniques; and Lee Ranaldo himself directed his artist-wife Leah Singer in ‘Hoarfrost’, which was shot during winter in what appears to be Winnipeg.
The musical world into which Sonic Youth released A Thousand Leaves in 1998 was considerably different from the one into which they’d released Dirty in ’92 or even Washing Machine in ’95. Dinosaur Jr. and Screaming Trees were on hiatus and without recording contracts; Soundgarden and Eric’s Trip were gone; Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction were long gone; and Pussy Galore and Spacemen 3 were already the stuff of fading Gen-X memories. This was exacerbated by the wave of decidedly radio-friendly ‘post-grunge’ acts (Matchbox Twenty, Nickleback, Creed) that were entering the picture by this time, as well as the Spice Girls and the major labels’ increased focus on a prepubescent audience. Needless to say, the album and its single did not instigate a commercial breakthrough at this relatively late stage in the band’s career. The album peaked at 38 on the UK Albums Chart and only 85 on the US Billboard 200, while the single managed to reach only 72 on the UK Singles Chart. Roughly 60,000 units of the album were sold within a year, compared to Washing Machine’s 150,000 units just three years earlier.
Reviews of the album ranged from lukewarm (Rolling Stone) to generally favourable (Spin) to truly glowing (NME). Robert Christgau, the Village Voice critic whose putdowns of the band’s early records had been so merciless that they were inspired to release a live version of ‘Kill Yr Idols’ retitled ‘I Killed Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick’ on a 1985 7-inch, went so far as to give it an A+ rating, and would go on to name it one of the best albums of the 1990s.
Ranaldo has stated that the album was “a real reflection of where we were at the time. We weren’t into making anything concise. We were just playing what we felt like playing. We really didn’t feel like what we needed to be doing was producing another record like Goo. The climate for it was not really there anyway.” (Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, 2008)
“It’s the music of a daydream nation old enough to treasure whatever time it finds on its hands,” opined Robert Christgau in his aforementioned Village Voice review. It’s appropriate that Christgau should mention the band’s classic 1988 double album and allude to the ageing process, for their 1998 double album can be looked upon as an internalised version of Daydream Nation for a Generation X ten years more mature and now susceptible to ’80s nostalgia.
A Thousand Leaves can also be looked upon as a mysterious concept album wherein the central concept remains purposefully shrouded from conscious perception; a loose narrative that seems eerily familiar but hopelessly out of memory’s reach for most.
Like all the best groups that appealed to the college-radio and alternative markets in the 1980s and ’90s, Sonic Youth often made strong, effective use of obscure and/or nostalgic pop-culture references in their songs, album-cover art, videos, and other creative output. This practice can certainly be seen in the overall effort that is A Thousand Leaves — especially if my long-held hunch is correct.
From the moment I first laid eyes on its Marnie Weber album cover, I had a feeling that I’d seen all this before; that some work of fiction shallowly buried in my Gen-X memories was possibly being referenced. The hamster being confronted by the human hand with imposing middle finger… The young girl in bed, insecurely pulling the sheets to her neck — Wasn’t this eerily reminiscent of scenes from Nicolas Gessner’s 1976 Canadian thriller The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane? Didn’t it bring to mind a pubescent Jodie Foster being awakened in the night, and a sociopathic Martin Sheen manhandling her hamster before burning its eyes out with a cigarette?
There is also the ‘Mille Feuille’ photo of Gordon and the cake slice in the CD booklet and cassette j-card. This is reminiscent of the birthday cake that Foster carries from the kitchen and cuts for Sheen’s trick-or-treating children in the film’s opening scene. Also notable is the sight of Macaulay Culkin wearing a top hat in the ‘Sunday’ video. This is comparable to the top-hat-wearing Scott Jacoby in the film’s role of birthday-party magician Mario. The photo of Moore on the cover of the ‘Sunday’ single, with his face partially covered by a large napkin or pillow case, brings to mind a masked Jacoby disguised as Foster’s poet-father. As well, in the band’s official promotional video (or ‘Electronic Press Kit’) for A Thousand Leaves, Moore is seen rummaging through Hallowe’en costumes and accessories at some bargain store or dollar store while ‘Sunday’ plays on the soundtrack. He selects a jack-o’-lantern trick-or-treat pail similar to the one Sheen carries in the thriller, and proceeds to wander through the aisles with it.
Central to the album is a lengthy song about and dedicated to the late poet Allen Ginsberg. Central to the film is a dead poet whose teenaged daughter (Foster) is pretending he’s still alive.
From where I sit, it’s also somewhat uncanny that the album would be entitled A Thousand Leaves, for the words ‘leaves’ and ‘leaf’ are ubiquitous throughout Laird Koenig’s autumn-set 1974 suspense novel that the film is based upon.
Whatever the truth about the origins of its title and any elements of ’70s pop culture that may or may not have informed its concept and production values, the album stands on its merits as a double-length foray into middle-aged themes and extended jams — its creators hell-bent on testing the limits of a major label during the waning days of grunge and the ‘Alternative era’. If anything, any ongoing questions surrounding its conceptual source material and the like only add to the album’s mystique.
A Thousand Leaves would be Sonic Youth’s final ‘mainstream’ album of the eventfully nifty 1990s. This is not to suggest that they would spend the remainder of the decade resting on their laurels, however. In addition to the usual solo and side projects, there was the double SYR album of contemporary classical interpretations, Goodbye 20th Century, to be completed. As for their next Geffen record, the one that would take them into the 2000s, it would require unprecedented improvisation and enterprise in the face of unforeseen adversity, and would test the limits of the label, the critics and the fans like no album of theirs before or after. For a band that was now seen in some circles as ‘grunge dinosaurs’ and ‘Eighties has-beens’, there were certainly busy days ahead.
