One of my favorite songs. I replaced the badly damaged original audio track with an HQ remaster, and adjusted the washed-out contrast of the promo video.
Such a haunting song. "Walk Away Renee" & "Cherish" by The Association were the most-beautiful hits of '66. At 12 years old I kissed a girl for the first time - Prettiest girl I'd ever known. It was October 1966, and both songs were on the radio. We were "good and kissed" that night. It's now 2019, and we're still friends, thanks to Facebook - and yeah, she's STILL pretty. Thank you, Left Banke.
I just heard it for the first time since prior to 1970. My older brother played it over and over. He's been gone 32 years. I was born in 66. But I know I heard it before I ever went to school and not since. I had a broken heart before I was 6 due to this song. And it's remained my entire life when it comes to music
Michael Brown the keyboardist wrote this about his crush on the girlfriend of the band’s bass player. Michael died in 2015, after also becoming a Christian, but I think this is his piece of earthly immortality. Thank you Michael. 💯 ☮️ ❤️
I remember hearing this song often as a kid. Never could catch most of the words beyond the refrain, but it is so catchy. Still can’t catch them as an adult. Thankfully I can look up the lyrics.
I was a child when I first heard this song. It takes me back to a better time. Who knew that decades later we'd have the privilege of seeing this video. The lead singer's voice is perfect for the lyrics.Much appreciated!
I went to school with some girls named Renee back in the eighties, which was my childhood. Years later when hearing this song and realizing the name "Renee" is in the title, I got to thinking this must have been the song that inspired parents to name their daughters that! I wouldn't doubt it at this point. ~Dutch
Justin Hensley I worked at the main mortuary at Tan-son- Nhut air base in Saigon for my first 6 months then was promoted to Sgt E-5 and sent to xuan-Loc where I was attached to the 11th Cav. I was in charge of the grave registration unit there and followed the Cav as they went into the field, I was in charge of the recovery unit that recovered the Kia that couldn’t be brought out after battles. I guess I was in 3 corps most of the time but not sure as I did a lot of traveling with my mos 57f40
This song is a timeless classic! I wish I could have experienced life in the sixties, but I wasn't born until 1979. However, I love and embrace the beautiful pop music of the old generations. It obviously was a more simple time. This song is just beautiful! ~Dutch
I was a teenager when this song came out, and it has haunted me ever since, every time I have revisited it - still does. And no, sorry, it was absolutely not at all a simpler time; it was at least equally complicated, but in a different way - more trusting certainly, perhaps more naive, definitively more hopeful, less cynical, less inclined to think of facile sneering as a sign of sophistication. I am 76 years old; was there, saw that, still have a ragged t-shirt or two to show for it, and, nostalgia aside, it probably was better then. Not simpler; just better. Progress, my arse.
..great scott!! hey marty..lets go back to 1955!! never mind the plutonium..once we"ve got there, we'll never go back to the future, much better time we got there!!
This song is eternally haunting and this simple, black and white video is by itself so powerful. Note that Steve Martin Caro's expressions really make an impression.
The song actually is not simple. There are 8 different chords in the song. Three of those chords are not even in the key of A Major Ionian mode. There's a flat 7, a minor 4 & a major 2 that are substitution chords. In addition, the song is pitched high in the tenor range so most guys couldn't even come close to singing it. LOL
Me 2. 10 years old and knew zero about romance and loss but this song took me by the heart. Nowadays it makes me tear up and hunt my wife on for a hug and a reassurance "Dont die first babe. Please."
I was very small when this came out. My Brother had records that I inherited as he went to the Army. A vast library of what is now our memories in music Gold. They'll never beat those songs Yall
Back in the days where garage bands were a dime a dozen, here today gone tomorrow. The Left Banke left their mark in the music industry and with the records buying public with quite a few well-crafted songs and one of the best debut record albums by a garage band.
45 rpm little records with one song per side. We had a garage band two guitar players one with a 60's strat, I was drafted as the singer. We would call up girls on the phone and play Evil Hearted You by Yardbirds and Heart full of soul. Those were the days before acid, and Panama Red.❤👍🤩
It was a subgenre of both soft rock and folk music popularised in 1964-1969 known, believe it or not, as ‘Baroque rock’, of which this, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘As Tears Go By’, ‘Shades of Grey’, and a few others were prominent examples. Most commonly (but definitely not always) it’s a string quartet (or two, as in ‘Rigby’) accompanying a traditional 4-instrument rock ensemble.
@@JonnieCometLtd Ah, interesting point, Jonnie! Baroque Rock. Never heard that term, but I like it. The Beatles had George Martin to help them with string arrangements, such as on "Eleanor Rigby," but I wonder who the Left Banke had to help them? Their father?
@@thomasromano9321 yes; Lookofsky seemed to have been a rare combination of musical talent and managerial chutzpah; but in retrospect his arrogance and greed were the band’s undoing; and his son Michael (who went by ‘Brown’ to distance himself professionally from his father, for obvious reasons), unfortunately turned out very egocentric and hard to work with as well. He should’ve stayed as a non-performing songwriter, like Julie Flanders for October Project.
@@JonnieCometLtd I'm so sorry to hear that! I didn't have the insight on the band that you do. I often wondered about this band, they seemed a bit ahead of their time. I remember this song when I was in eighth grade, 1967. Sure would have liked to have heard more compositions by this band. Do you know (just curious) how well-schooled musically the band members were? Could they actually write out music notation?
@@thomasromano9321 given that Lookofsky was a professional musician and that his son Michael was a piano prodigy, I’d say the band had that ability. But songs of the rock-and-roll era aren’t ‘written’; they’re devised, played, committed to memory and performed in a studio. Once some backbone of the song is recorded, parts get edited and added. The great advent to pure-digital recording, not available till at least 1985 (personal computer era), is the ability to extend the length of the song and to raise or lower pitch without having to change the tape speed. (Witness George Martin’s piano solo in ‘In my life’ which was recorded slowly and sped up to 30 IPS to give it the sound of a harpischord. That’s boggled later musicians for years. We’re all stuck with having to play it as it’s heard.) The strings on this are almost certainly arranged and directed by Lookofsky. Sounds like a string quartet.
Written primarily by then-16-year old Michael Brown, who has stated that the song is one of a number he wrote about Renée Fladen-Kamm, who was then the girlfriend of The Left Banke's bassist Tom Finn and object of Brown's imaginary affection.
That's incorrect. Michael only added the line "You're not to blame" The Song was written by Tony Sansone, and it was not about Renee Fladen-Kamm, it was about the area Tony grew up in.
I'm older Gen X, and have been hearing this version since...forever. Which is late 70s, for me...on the Oldies stations. Although I don't think I ever knew the name of the group (to associate it with the song, at least) till yesterday. And I've never heard the Four Tops version, or as far as I recall, any other version, till looking it up a moment ago. The Left Banke version is the definitive version, at least for me. It's a plaintive song of teenage loss, and powerlessness, and they sung it that way. It's amazing that a teenager wrote it. I couldn't have written it if I'd been a teenager for a million years.
Here is another rare television clip of the Left Banke - Shadows Breaking Over My Head ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D7ZfXNJsneg.html
He’s so sad that it is the rain itself that cries for him, gets into his eyes. He’s so separate that his one connection is not w any person, but w nature only, the only thing that understands him Like oedipus after he finds out the truth what he has done-his only connection is w nature too in that story, he’s disconnected w humanity
I have a wonderful haunting fondness for "Pretty Ballerina". both songs are great but the ballerina has been stuck in my psyche for some reason. Thanks for the upload.
I dated a girl named Renee when this came. My first digs band was also named Renee Piedmont. When I became an adult my first dog was Renee Piedmont Ii.
@Paulie Pavarowtee i had found a little, he got married I know, and he was a beaten down old man when he died, saw him on a short clip where he was missing teeth and talking pretty wierd.
I think this was on Dick Clark’s Where The Action Is, and they’re miming to the song, it wasn’t live. Great song! And l also love The Four Tops rendition of this too.
Remembering Steve Martin Caro born on October 12, 1948. He was an American rock musician. He is best known as the original lead singer of the 1960's baroque pop band The Left Banke. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin_Caro
@@johndevalera6014 Not certian of which one went to Berkeley School of Music, but Michael McKean of Laverne & Shirly Fame TV Show was amember of The Left Banke for at least a short time! In early 1967, he was briefly a member of the New York City "baroque pop" band The Left Banke and played on the "Ivy, Ivy" single (B-side: "And Suddenly"). - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_McKean#Early_life
yes, though not American. Steve was born and raised in Spain and came to America in his late teens. He did live the rest of his life here, though- in NY.
My my what a brilliant cover,it's the first time I have seen or heard them.The lead singers voice is very melodic. I love it,very good song and brilliantly performed.
@davidetienne9404 Oh, I am so sorry. I never knew that.Accept my apologies.The song really is amazing, and the writer,or writers were extremely talented.
Even more incredible, the song came straight from the heart and the young man at 16 writing lyrics like that makes you wonder.Very talented he is without a doubt.
Though I really love them, is their version of this song weak against the original. They are adults they sing professional. This loneliness, this desperation, the feeling this was THE LOVE, you will never again be able to feel it, and you will stay alone forever- no forty-year-old EVER can have and express that feelings!
Some controversy regarding that. The idea was definitely Mike's, but Tony and another member felt they were just as involved with the finished product as Mike.
They were from New York and northern NJ. I don’t know how Michigan looks but the highest likelihood is that it’s some park within a 30-minute commute of Manhattan in 1967.
