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You are here: Home / Music / Song of the week

Song of the week

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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.

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  3. 3.

    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.

  4. 4.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    One of my favorite songs in the world.

    Here’s to the Left Banke from the Left Bank.

  5. 5.

    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.

  6. 6.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Corner Stone:

    But now I think that after years and years of split personality trolling, DougJ has finally cracked.

    Is this a new development, aren’t mathematicians supposed to be crazy? A beautiful mind and all that..

  7. 7.

    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

  10. 10.

    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.

  12. 12.

    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.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Is this a new development, aren’t mathematicians supposed to be crazy? A beautiful mind and all that..

    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.

  19. 19.

    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.

  20. 20.

    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.

  23. 23.

    Shana

    Marshall Crenshaw did a damn fine version too. Although, truth be told, Marshall Crenshaw does most things pretty well.

  25. 25.

    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.

  27. 27.

    Svensker

    @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.

    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.

  30. 30.

    Svensker

    Boston’s Tom Scholz has said this was a primary inspiration behind “More Than a Feeling.”

    That is NOT a Good Thing.

    In the deep vein, there’s always this

  31. 31.

    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.

  32. 32.

    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.

  33. 33.

    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:

    “Although it’s a small film, I’m as pleased with it as with any of the others. I used Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale because, for me, it captured the whole feeling of loss – the sense of a relationship ending and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

    Which is exactly what I was going through when I saw that movie. No wonder.

  34. 34.

    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.

  39. 39.

    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.

  44. 44.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @MattF: Also this.

    El duende is the spirit of evocation. It comes from inside as a physical/emotional response to music. It is what gives you chills, makes you smile or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive.

    Reading about Weltschmerz also makes me think of the Wallace Stevens line: “It can never be satisfied, the mind, never”.

  45. 45.

    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…

  46. 46.

    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.

  47. 47.

    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.

  48. 48.

    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.

  51. 51.

    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.

  53. 53.

    SuzieC

    Don’t care for it. Never did. The lead singer is singing thru his nose. Mr. # 38, though, yeah.

  57. 57.

    George Wallace's Goat

    Rhapsody describes The Left Banke as the first group to be labelled “Baroque Rock” (or to my mind, Baroque Pop).

  58. 58.

    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?

  60. 60.

    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

  61. 61.

    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?

  62. 62.

    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.

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