Left Banke – Walk Away Renée ….Power Pop Friday

I have always liked this song. This was baroque pop at its finest. Baroque pop combines pop with classical music. Some other examples would be As Tears Go By by the Stones, Yesterday by the Beatles, and She’s Not There by the Zombies. There is also a genre called Barogue Rock.

It peaked at #5 in the Billboard 100 and #3 in Canada. The song is constructed so well and has influenced countless artists. They did have one more top twenty hit in 1967 with Pretty Ballerina. The band helped start “baroque & roll” because of the classical arrangements and melodies.

Michael Brown wrote the song but the band fought constantly so after the success of the single Brown was putting together a new Left Banke to tour that included Michael McKean (Lavergne and Shirley and Spinal Tap) on guitar but that didn’t last long.

The original band regrouped in 1967 and recorded a song but then broke up for good. Walk Away Renee was written by band member Michael Brown, who was 16 at the time, with help from his friends Bob Calilli and Tony Sansone. Brown wrote it after meeting Renee Fladen, the girlfriend of the band’s bass player.

Renee Fladen was in the control room when Michael Brown tried to record his harpsichord part. He later said in an interview that he was so nervous trying to play with the beautiful Renee present that his hands were shaking. In the end, he gave up and returned later when he recorded it without any problem.

The line “Just walk away Renee” is often misinterpreted as “Don’t walk away Renee.” The singer has decided that Renee will never return his affections and is better off with her out of his life.

Walk Away Renée

And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You’re not to blame

From deep inside the tears that I’m forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hide

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me, though they’re so small

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You’re not to blame

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

49 thoughts on “Left Banke – Walk Away Renée ….Power Pop Friday”

  1. This is one of those very-60s songs that I always loved but never remembered the name of the band. I’m amazed to see Michael McKean’s name associated with them too. He has done everything, I swear. He’s a Swiss Army Knife. I didn’t remember Pretty Ballerina, so I pulled it up on Youtube. Now I remember it. That is a nice one.

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    1. He is in everything. When I saw him in Spinal Tap…my mind still went to “Lenny” on Laverne and Shirley. He is a good musician though.

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  3. Great song, a true classic. Renee was a girl of Swedish parentage who had blond, almost white-blond hair. A number of the band members fell madly in love with her, and she dated Tom Finn and several other members of the band, but she spurned Mike Brown, and this created the anguish responsible for him to write the song of unrequited love. Mike Brown said that he wrote this puppy love teenage heartbreak song because he felt like he was a lonely kid following this hot blonde down his one-way street, putting their names/initials on the wall (in hope of getting her), crying, feeling empty without her.

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    1. Like Sharona…it must feel pretty cool lthat a song like this is written about you. They mixed the pop and classical element well in this song.

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  4. A great song, one of those things that were in the background soundtrack to my early years and I’ve liked ever since. Brown was barely 17 when it came out (unfortunately it might seem his career peaked while he was that age!)

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    1. That is a good version. They translated it to more of a bar song… it is more punchy you are right.
      we did that to Abba’s SOS…it worked! It was fun watching the confusion on the bar crowds faces.

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      1. Im a “bar guy” so that version works for me. I totally dig when songs are reworked and grab me. Similar to That Parker cut you posted. I would have liked to hear that Abba redo. I would have been one of those “confused faces”

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      3. Delta Dawn? That needed a bit of a makeover for my ear. I’m sure the original brought a lot of joy to a lot of folks.
        Remember The Who kicking into Beach Boys song on ‘The Kids Are All Right’. Another gear for me. Lots of times the cover sounds better to me.

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      4. I think that one could have got recorded…if I ever find it I’ll send it along. It is Delta Dawn with a hell of a crunch.
        When I heard Moon sing that song…I started to like it.

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      1. It works for me
        (Panther. I have tried to drop a few comments on your site but they are not getting through. Maybe a problem at my end. I seem to be able to mouth off on other sites no problem)

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    1. It’s one of those great pop songs…that will stick in your head forever. Since I wrote this…it’s been going through my head.

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  14. This is such a sweet and sour song. ‘Your name and mine, inside a heart upon a wall / Still finds a way to haunt me, though they’re so small.’ Leiber And Stoller or Paul and John would envy that. ‘Pretty Ballerina’ has the same underpinnings too, though I recall (fuzzily!) a version by some other Brit band, but can’t fuzzily remember who it was… The Minbenders, Wayne Fontana..? (Wanders away scratching head, talking to himself…)

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  15. I loved this song as a kid–such a tender melody–but I had no idea the writer/singer was only 16! That explains his tone and pitch–he barely passes for adolescent in the video. A beautiful song.

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  16. Now that song is an earworm. It was all over the radio back then, and was considered a “chick” tune. Us guys had to listen to it because the girls controlled the radio stations on dates. If a song that they thought to be to heavy, they would switch the station until a song like that one,or Dusty Springfield or The Supremes came on. I purposely removed the fuse for my car radio so I could get some piece. It was a good song, well written and produced.

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    1. Thanks Dude….You know…they have “baroque” heavy metal/hard rock now that I think about it….any metal with an orchestra backing would be it.

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