Peter Salett – “Suddenly The Leaves” (Song Premiere)

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Today I’m excited to introduce everyone to Peter Salett, the talented singer-songwriter and composer from Brooklyn, NY who has a steady hand in mapping out picturesque moments in his songs. “Suddenly The Leaves” is the latest single from Salett that tackles the concept of the changing of seasons and the emotions that come with this feeling. The single comes from the new record, Dance of the Yellow Leaf, that will be released on July 11th. If you’re enjoying the early listen, please consider pre-saving the new record here.

Seasonal Surprise & Poetic Moment: You say the opening line, “suddenly the leaves are on the ground / no one seemed to see them coming down,” struck you as a moment when “the season had snuck up on me.” How does that feeling of unexpected change shape your experience of the song? In what ways do you think your background as a film composer and your use of ambient nature sounds enhances that cinematic surprise?

I think these songs work best when there’s a sense of discovery inside of them, both lyrically and harmonically. Lyrically I’m working with a sense of collage across the entire record. Words come in and out of focus. Musically the refrain in Suddenly the Leaves has a different feel from the verses, more harmonically intense, and then the outro takes us back to a feeling of peace – “All will be remembered / all is left to come” The ambient sounds are part of the sonic landscape that transports the listener into a world of memory and dreams, and lays the foundation for the music to be heard inside the dreamland.

Ephemerality & Emotional Distance: The lyric “holding on to beauty as it burns / so bright” speaks to both the intensity and fleetingness of what we love. Considering your reflection that time “both giv[es] us distance from emotional scars but also … whatever we love in the moment is ephemeral,” how does the music—of your warm vocals, delicate guitar, and sweeping strings—convey that tension between preservation and loss?

I think you’ve said it well – there is a natural contrast between the beauty in the music and the subjects in the songs. In another song on the record I say “There’s honey in the pain, dear / We’re going against the grain here” Can there be beauty in loss, even before rebirth?

From Personal Loss to Universal Reflection: “Suddenly the Leaves” was the first song you wrote for Dance of the Yellow Leaf, a suite born out of a period of “great emotional upheaval.” How does knowing this origin story affect your interpretation of the song? Can you identify moments in the arrangement where you let go of strict rhythm to let natural flow mirror the process of mourning and renewal?

In “Suddenly the Leaves,” the listener can feel the non-metronomic nature of the music before each section, but particularly before the instrumental and then the return to the final verse. These very slight pauses are like breaths as we move from section to another, to take the time, internally not literally, to reflect on where we’ve come from and what might be to follow.

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