A personal favorite of mine, I have to admit. (EDIT: This and all songs of the week posts are written by JPK of Can’t Explain, not by me.)
Left Banke, “Walk Away Renee” (1966)
I know this is a favorite of DougJ’s and who am I to second-guess that? This exquisite mid-’60s chamber orchestra production is so artfully executed, so sad and yet so lovely, with its sawing strings and soothing flute solo (borrowed from “California Dreamin'”) and all its little touches, that it’s kind of hard to grok that it actually became a top 5 hit, but there you have it. Fun facts, courtesy Wikipedia: Boston’s Tom Scholz has said this was a primary inspiration behind “More Than a Feeling.” Rod Stewart named his daughter Renee because this is one of his favorite songs. Gwen Stefani’s middle name is Renee because of this song.
The other hit: “Pretty Ballerina”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.
schrodinger's cat
Who or what is Dougerhead? I has a confused.
Corner Stone
Going Ricky Henderson on us now?
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: I had assumed it was a response to the Rick Perry Niggerhead controversy.
But now I think that after years and years of split personality trolling, DougJ has finally cracked.
Bill E Pilgrim
One of my favorite songs in the world.
Here’s to the Left Banke from the Left Bank.
Elliecat
Poignant for sure. One of those songs heard in childhood that filled me with an ache that made me both long for and dread growing up.
On the other hand, I’ve always thought “Pretty Ballerina” was crap.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone:
Is this a new development, aren’t mathematicians supposed to be crazy? A beautiful mind and all that..
burnspbesq
1966 was a good year for ballads:
God Only Knows
When a Man Loves a Woman
Cherish
Monday, Monday
Strangers in the Night
this one
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat: I gave up long ago trying to make any sense of real entities and which belongs to which name. There’s a cat I think, the rest is decoration.
JPL
I have a song for those willing to admit that they are longhorn fans today. link
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat: I think quantum theory has something about how you can know DougJ’s position or his nick at any given time, but not both.
Edit: In fact, you should know, if anyone does.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
Or Bob Dole.
You’re right about the song…the strings, the flute solo…magnificent.
MikeJ
Is JPK of Can’t Explain the same one that contributed the Flamin’ Groovies to Cleek’s list? Always glad to discover I’m not the only fan of something.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat:
To the contrary, IMO. DougJ has masterfully held together a series of parallel existences, some overlapping and some divergent. To my way of thinking, it’s been the overlap that’s the hardest part to shed at needed times. Any good method actor, or method writer, can slip into a villain or hero/anti-hero in successive terms.
But trying to hold the line against encroaching similar thought processes seems like a much more varied challenge.
It’s evident that DougJ, whoever that is, is clearly insane. I’m just contemplating when that comes to the fore in his multi-verse, and I hope to God he’s been taking extensive notes this whole time. Because they deserve to be published and studied.
gogol's wife
“Walk Away Renee” is one of the greatest songs ever written.
burnspbesq
There’s also this from 1966:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n03a7cLf0M
JPK
@MikeJ: Yes, that’s me!
wenchacha
Rickie Lee Jones does a nice cover of this.
MikeJ
@JPK: Cross blog pollination!
Mustang Bobby
I remember that song very well from junior high (yeah, I’m that old), but never could understand most of the lyrics. Didn’t really care; just belting out the chorus in study hall provoked the first-year English teacher beyond all proportion.
Bill E Pilgrim
This is another one that seems similar in both how timeless it is and how it was the only song anyone knew from them.
This is actually where I learned to love it, oddly, after having heard it for years. The movie short was good, but Scorsese’s choice of music just slayed me for some reason, as well as the revelation that Nick Nolte was in this.
Maude
@gogol’s wife:
I could hear that song in my mind as I read the title I have heard it so many times.
Irony Abounds
The Four Tops version ain’t half bad either
Shana
Marshall Crenshaw did a damn fine version too. Although, truth be told, Marshall Crenshaw does most things pretty well.
eemom
yikes. I hate that song and thought everyone else did too. What have I DONE?
Dougerhead
@Shana:
Funny, I remembered the name from when I was growing up but I never knew any of his songs til my cousin played his first album for me a few years ago. He wrote some great songs.
Comrade Mary
Balloon Juice: “There’s a cat I think, the rest is decoration.”
Svensker
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Yes. For some reason both Whiter Shade of Pale and Walk Away Renee touched something in my young teen soul — such longing, such….something! I knew they were deep, wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew it. Still love ’em.
dj spellchecka
yet another fantastic left banke song
“she may call you up tonight”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ag4EV9iyS0
gogol's wife
@Irony Abounds:
Yes, beautiful.
Svensker
That is NOT a Good Thing.
In the deep vein, there’s always this
eemom
ok, now Whiter Shade of Pale I can get into.
Particularly like the Chaucer ref, “as the miller told his tale.” At least I always assumed it was a Chaucer ref.
Bill E Pilgrim
@eemom: Some of the best most abstract pop song lyrics ever. Here’s an attempt to make sense of it, and here’s a whole page. Here’s one of the band members explaining.
Oddly, I never had the slightest trouble understanding them at least on a gut level, I suspect anyone who’s toured as a musician for a living wouldn’t either.
Bill E Pilgrim
Huh. And (since my previous comment is in moderation, maybe too many links) from that collection, here’s Martin Scorcese’s take:
Which is exactly what I was going through when I saw that movie. No wonder.
phoebesmother
The Left Banke is fine but have you heard the version by Ann Savoy and Linda Ronstadt on “Adieu False Heart”? It’ll break your heart.
Cat Lady
Here’s another one that always got to me like Don’t Walk Away Renee did, but Valerie Carter did the best version in the movie Over The Edge – an AWESOME movie, btw. The Turtles, Young Rascals and the Grass Roots take me back, also too.
jharp
@Bill E Pilgrim:
One of my all time favorites as well.
A beautiful song.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: I’ll see your Knickerbockers and raise you this…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy3ZZO9rguk&feature=related
MattF
@Svensker: It’s called Weltschmerz.
Frankie T.
I love the version of this tune by The Left Banke. The version by the Four Tops, with the full Motown treatment, is pretty awesome, too.
Irony Abounds got there first with the link.
MattF
My linky-thingy didn’t work. I meant this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz
Linkmeister
@phoebesmother: Here’s a video, unfortunately not the official one which includes Ann: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSXfMQuiqwg
The whole album is rootsy.
James Gary
Let us not forget Billy Bragg’s “version”…with loopy stream-of-consciousness rambling over the song’s guitar part:
“I confronted her about it…I said, “I’m the most illegible bachelor in town. And she said, “Yeah–that’s why I could never understand any of those silly letters you sent me.”
http://www.asklyrics.com/display/billy-bragg/walk-away-renee-version-lyrics.htm
Lynn Dee
A favorite of mine too, way back when.
Bill E Pilgrim
@MattF: Also this.
Reading about Weltschmerz also makes me think of the Wallace Stevens line: “It can never be satisfied, the mind, never”.
Mustang Bobby
@eemom: Wow, Whiter Shade of Pale… The summer of 1967, summer school at St. George’s School, Newport, Rhode Island, struggling with math homework, listening to Top 40 from WBZ in Boston on a tinny clock radio. That song takes me right there, even down to the strange smell in the stairwell…
alex milstein
I don’t think it is hard to grasp how a beautiful sounding record like Walk Away, Renee made it to the top five. I think it did BECAUSE it sounded so different from what we had previously heard. And I think the times (and radio) were very different back then, not as formulaic as they are today, when artists were embraced because they tried something truly new. Just think, back then you could hear the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Miracles, Temptations, Rascals, and on and on. Today, Lady Gaga is heralded because she sounds like Madonna.
alex milstein
Left Banke also scored with ‘Pretty Ballerina.’ And I remember another tune of theirs: ‘Barterers and their Wives.’ And just because the hits didn’t keep on coming, that doesn’t diminish what they actually did do. Groups didn’t always go on forever, much less make it to their second album.
Linkmeister
@alex milstein: Hell, back then you could hear movie scores on AM radio along with those groups. The “Theme from A Summer Place” was played a lot, along with “Born Free” and “Lara’s Theme,” from Dr. Zhivago.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Linkmeister: You could even pick up satellites now and then.
General Stuck
Great tune. you have been going down the list of my teeny bop heartache years.
Another one – Lovin’ Spoonful – Do You Believe in Magic?
And another that was formative in my early music listening years.
Glen Campbell – Witchita Lineman
Vickie Feminist
In my hippy days, we were all listening to Sgt.Pepper round the clock. When I was asked what was my favorite song from it, I answered, “Just Walk Away Renee.” The serious music crowd howled. I truly loved that song.
BTW Loving reading Confidence Men–it’s fast and fascinating and a true chop job on the well deserving Summers & Geithner.
Dougerhead
@General Stuck:
I love Wichita Lineman.
SuzieC
Don’t care for it. Never did. The lead singer is singing thru his nose. Mr. # 38, though, yeah.
SuzieC
Wow, I just looked at the Top 100 hits of 1966. Incroyable! Can’t forget this:
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=vFN65Lp0MHc&offerid=146261.77685917&type=2&subid=0
Sarah in Brooklyn
Love this song. Elliott Smith did a gorgeous live cover.
Jeff
@wenchacha: As do the Four Tops!
George Wallace's Goat
Rhapsody describes The Left Banke as the first group to be labelled “Baroque Rock” (or to my mind, Baroque Pop).
priscianusjr
And Renee, my girlfriend for four years, had just walked away when this came out. You don’t think I’d forget that, do you?
Elliecat
@General Stuck: @Dougerhead: Wichita Lineman still gets me.
steve
Walk Away Renee was produced by my friend Ken Schaffer, who also invented the wireless mike and guitar. He was also married to the woman who played the one-legged Russian on The Sopranos. Finally, Ken also believes that he is the source of the question “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?,” asked of Dan Rather by two guys who mugged him.
Ken is a remarkable guy who knew nothing of sound engineering of a rock ‘n; roll song when he produced Walk Away Renee for Ricky Brand, who was our high school classmate.
For more on his remarkable life, see:
http://nutcom.com/nyer/ and http://books.google.com/books?id=N-QCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=ken+schaffer+inventor+new+yorker&source=bl&ots=NEQQ5dt4nx&sig=q2He4_GTeklNsLeQJkFbGxMVNm4&hl=en&ei=KA2RTqepGOfisQKdjbGvAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
Cat Lady
@steve:
I’m so glad I came back to read the rest of this thread.
Far fucking out. Did he know what the frequency was? And why did they think Dan Rather was Kenneth?
Cat Lady
Ahhhhh. I skimmed through the long article, but there it is in the other link. Another mystery solved, and no REM to update their song.
Paul in KY
@Vickie Feminist: ‘Lovely Rita’ has always been a favourite of mine.