Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Left Banke - "She May Call You Up Tonight" (1967)

There are a number of '60s groups, and even specific songs, that probably tend to be most commonly identified as the precursors to power pop. Listening to songs like "Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "Mary Mary," though, there is a certain musical gap that seems to exist between them and the songs of power pop groups from later decades (those that were not extremely '60s revivalist-oriented anyway).

That's not the case with this Left Banke song. The harmonically exploratory bridge, of course, is a big Nazz precursor. More striking, though, are the verses and the chorus, which really somehow seem to predate that specific '70s musical vocabulary more than any song I'm aware of from the period.

Also unique with this song is its piano-driven sound, which predates Procol Harum a little bit but in a much more pop-rock-oriented context. An incredible piece of work.