Songfacts®:

• Keith Reid was Procol Harum's lyricist. He doesn't sing or play an instrument, so he got a lot of help on his Common Thread album: John Waite, Southside Johnny and Chris Thompson all perform on it. This track features lead vocals by Steve Booker, who also wrote the music. Booker co-wrote and produced Duffy's hit "Mercy."
• Reid told us about this song: "On 'Silver Town,' I was thinking back to 'greed is good' and Gordon Gekko, a guy who would go to some town, buy out the local business and put everybody out of work. It doesn't just happen in America, but somehow it seems to happen a lot in America where a town and a community depends on a business and it closes down. It's amazing how quickly the whole thing can just fall apart. It's all very tenuous: you've got communities which have been there for a long time, often thriving, and suddenly the factory closes down and everybody's lives fall apart." (See our interview with Keith Reid.)