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The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same.

luckluck 4,077 Posts
edited August 2006 in Strut Central
What a fucking perfect line. I've played this single (Four Tops version) nine times straight.Renee was, honestly, every single girl in Junior High I ever fell in love with.I need these 2 LPs in my life. That, and their "Things Go Better With" ep.

  Comments

  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    That, and their "Things Go Better With" ep.


    And when I see the sign that
    points one way ---------------> http://larryhovis.net/leftbanke/lbisms1.php
  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    Thanks very much. I had no idea that site existed.

    I heard this song on the local oldies station growing up about 300 times, so it's certainly not new to me. But some songs make wicked mental comebacks and are applicable anew as you mature and experience life. I love it when that happens, even if a little pain or insolidity is dredged up in the process. This is where I'm at in life right now.
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts


    I heard this song on the local oldies station growing up about 300 times, so it's certainly not new to me. But some songs make wicked mental comebacks and are applicable anew as you mature and experience life.

    While I am not the world's biggest Left Banke fan, that's exactly how the song affected me. Heard it a bunch of times on oldies radio, and even bought the single when I found it in a used store. But somehow or another, ten years later I started playing the hell out of it (not that I didn't before, but). No incident triggered it, it's just that the beauty of the song stopped me dead in my tracks and I started spinning it about 10x more than previously.

    It makes sense that the Four Tops covered it, since lead singer Levi Stubbs knew how to sell a broken-hearted breakup song. Their cover is pretty good (even though it doesn't sound dramatically different from the Left Banke - all the Tops' producers added was a horn section).
  • CosmoCosmo 9,768 Posts
    Were the Four Tops Jewish?
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
    Were the Four Tops Jewish?

    Only in spirit Cosmo....
  • CosmoCosmo 9,768 Posts
    Oh okay.
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    And sure enough, there is a video on You Tube of the Left Banke lipsynching "Walk Away Renee" on Where The Action Is. Too bad it keeps stopping & starting...
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    And sure enough, there is a video on You Tube of the Left Banke lipsynching "Walk Away Renee" on Where The Action Is. Too bad it keeps stopping & starting...

    There are 2 videos of them (including the Where the Action Is one)
    on the website I linked above, as well as MP3's of the commercial jingles
    they did for Coca Cola and hair spray. By the way, the website is pretty
    legit, as the guy who runs it promotes it through the Yahoo! leftbankisms
    mailing list that includes Left Banke band members among their numbers...

    Also, if a video on youtube is "starting and stopping" it is just a file
    that takes a minute to load - you simply need to pause it until the little
    bar at the bottom fills in completely dark gray, and then it will play through
    uninterrupted.
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