The band that just walked away, Renee (Part II: the lyrics)
[Part I here.]
Whatever was I talking about when I said that the lyrics of “Walk Away, Renee” were poetry? You might think the lyrics aren’t so special; just the usual rock pap. But bear with me and see whether you end up changing your mind.
First, let’s take a look:
And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every dayCHORUS 1:
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 blameFrom deep inside the tears that I’m forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hideCHORUS 2:
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 criesCHORUS 2 repeat
Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still find a way to haunt me though they’re so smallCHORUS 1 repeat
The situation could hardly be more commonplace for a song—the pain of a breakup—and this helps us empathize with the singer. But it’s the specifics here (the girl’s name, the urban setting and images, and the singer’s complicated emotional response—the tension between his feelings of self-pity and his resigned and stoic detachment from it) that are unique and arresting.
From the very first word the lyrics are unusual; is there another song that begins in the middle of a sentence with the word “and?” If so, I can’t think of it. And yet it’s a remarkably effective device, making it seem as though the listener is almost eavesdropping, breaking into the young man’s fragmented private thoughts.
The image in that very first line—a one-way street sign—reminds us that, no matter what we might wish after a love is lost, time’s arrow only goes in one direction: forward. It also plunges us into the song’s setting—an urban street—all in just a few parsimonious words.
Then there’s the second line of the song: “the lot we used to pass by every day.” In a way it’s a ho-hum thought: the jilted lover remembers the places the couple used to go. But why in this song does he mention a lot, and not something more attractive and conventionally sentimental? In a city the word usually refers to a vacant lot, and this image conjures up the idea of the emptiness associated with the loss of Renee, to be echoed later in the chorus with its “empty sidewalks.”
It’s also in that chorus where we learn that, despite the singer’s longing, he’s much stronger than we might expect: “you won’t see me follow you back home.” No stalker, he! And then we’re informed that, not only is this singer stronger than in the ordinary breakup song, he’s devoid of the usual anger or self-pity, and more mature in his acceptance and even forgiveness: “you’re not to blame.”
Next the chorus grabs us with the hook: the “away/Renee” rhyme, which combined with the melancholy melody has made for so many irresistible earworms over the years.
The second verse, like the first, begins in the middle of a phrase (“From deep inside”), and then offers some truncated images and fragments again, this time involving another cliche: tears and pain. Could anything be more ordinary in a song about a breakup? But once again, this singer has something unexpected up his sleeve. He’s not just crying, he’s fighting it: he’s forced to cry these tears against his will.
In the second chorus he adds another seeming cliche: the rain falls on his weary (rhymes with the unvoiced but implied word “teary”) eyes. Next, in a fine and compact example of the pathetic fallacy, the weather expresses his sorrow, described in the succinct phrase “for me it cries.”
We think we hear another cliched image in the last verse: the singer sees the former lovers’ names inscribed within a heart. But, contrary to our expectations, they’re not carved into a tree, they’re graffiti drawn on a wall. There’s that urban setting again. The drawing of the heart with the names is active and almost sentient (it “finds” a way to haunt him), while the singer remains passive and acted upon. And in that verse’s final line, he tries bravely but unsuccessfully to minimize the entire episode and keep the pain under control again and save himself from maudlin excess: “though they’re so small.”
Brown, Martin, Sansone, and all the rest (including Renee herself) seem to have walked away from their brief bolt of fame and fortune. Or perhaps fame and fortune walked away from them. But “Walk Away Renee” lives on, an unexpected masterpiece that seemed to have come out of nowhere to visit its youthful creators. A mysterious miracle.
[NOTE: There are a great many cover versions of Renee on YouTube; most of them seem quite inferior to me. The Four Tops had a popular one, but I don’t much care for it, although it’s better than most. But it’s not quite plaintive enough.
Here’s a strange and surprisingly affecting version with Cyndi Lauper; it’s plenty plaintive, all right. The guy with her gets that first line wrong in a way that’s rather common; he says “light” instead of “lot.” But I really like her voice on the chorus:
And here’s more of the real on-again off-again history of Brown and the band.]
The perfect metaphor on a Good Friday. Somehow it fits the tragic circumstances as we abandon Jews in their ancestral home and the West serves again to walk away.
Mea culpa.
I have loved these posts so much.
Walk Away Renee is a haunting, beautiful song that imo remains compelling after all these years. Btw, I like most of Cyndi Lauper’s catalog, especially the albums At Last and Body Acoustic. She a much better vocalist than she gets credit for.
Neo, I echo janetoo’s sentiment.
And,
Cyndi Lauper—Always GREAT.
This is also one of my favorite songs, but you’re a lot kinder to the lyrics than I am. I agree that they are occasionally original and effective, especially the opening, “And when I see the sign that points one way” and the two choruses work well and the urban imagery.
However, I always cringe at “From deep inside…” and “Your name and mine inside a heart” – maudlin and cliched.
I think it’s the resignation of the lines, “Just walk away, Renee,” and the minor key that really make the song memorable. One can’t help but see rainswept city streets.
Of course I had to see what this Renee looked like back in the day and Google has a picture of quite a lovely young lassie. It’s interesting how Google returns images that it considers related. In this case there were several Patti Boyd pictures because like Renee Fladen-Kamm she is immortalized by songs written by smitten men. George wrote “Something” for her and Eric wrote “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight”.
Interesting thoughts on those lyrics Neo. Actuallly there is a very popular song that starts “in the middle” of something with an “and.” It’s a break up song, too — Del Shannon’s “She Cried.” If you don’t recall it right away just YouTube it and you’ll remember Del coming in high with “And when I told her, I didn’t love her anymore…”
“Andmoreagain”, from Love’s late ’60s classic album Forever Changes, starts with the word “And”.
Yes, way too much of my mental capacity is occupied by pop music.
I do like this lyric a whole lot, and as I probably said re the Part I post, I really, really love the song as a whole. I wouldn’t apply the term “poetry” to it, though, because I reserve it for words that read well in isolation from the music, which I don’t think these particularly do. That doesn’t mean they aren’t excellent as lyrics. I can’t imagine the song with any others, really. As great as the melody is, the words enhance its effect in a big way.
I could never make out half the lyrics – so thank you. The song has haunted me since it was popular. Now I know why. You’re interpretation is pretty much a description of my first teenage love and our break up.
I’ll confess to having the reactions and “inner thoughts” that you sussed from the lyrics, but I could never see them as positive. Thank you for letting me see that too. Even (almost) 50 years later, it means a lot.
Hard to get over the appearance of Cyndi plucking the zither
looking like Lucy and the chocolates.
Renee perfectly captures the crushing defeat of unrequited love, when even the trivial induces suffering. That is (obviously) a personal take. But whatever it means, it is perfect.
Sort of OT:
Izzy does better than Judy and Louie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xoMhCT-7A
It’s a cliche but perhaps essentially true that females pay much more attention to the words while (young) males focus much more on the “noise.” (Or, the “noiz,” to use the band Slade’s spelling of the word.)
Pop music is a difficult art form to succeed in, because the music itself is so deceptively simple. As the primal rock critic replied to Lou Reed, when was defending David Bowie, and said: “But he writes so many good songs,” Bangs said, “Has he ever written anything as good as ‘Wooly Bully’?”
Few classically-trained musicians or graduates of the famous Berklee Scool of Music ever succeed in pop (or rock — whichever word you prefer) music, other than as backing musicians, and few momentary stars have very many good songs in them — which is why 1st albums tend to be a band’s best and why filling out a “Greatest Hits” album with more than ten songs (at best) tends to be so hard.
In general, it’s disposable music for the youth. Aging graceully within the form is rare.
Ralph Kinney Bennett, 10:22 pm —
“She Cried” was by Jay and The Americans . . .
. . . not at all by Del Shannon . . .
and just to complicate matters still more, this “Jay” was Jay Traynor, not the subsequent “Jay” — Jay Black — who sang lead on Jay and The Americans songs like “Come a Little Bit Closer” and “Cara Mia”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Traynor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Black
I’ve been looking forward to this post since Part I! I remember this song very well.
This is a lovely literary analysis. Thanks!
Carol Bayer Sager’s lyrics to “That’s What Friends Are For” begin: “And I never thought I’d feel this way.”
Back in the day, I paid very little attention to the lyrics of “Walk Away Renee,” or any other pop song, for that matter. I had acquired a loathing of literary analysis, courtesy of the “Junior Literary Critic” model forced upon me in high school English. Damned if I was going to ruin a song by doing the same thing that ruined for years my love of reading literature. If you could dance to it, give it a 5. Or a 9.
I have vague memories of a high school classmate giving a literary analysis of Sam the Sham’s Little Red Riding Hood– something about its being a satire. Given the obviously satirical aspects of Sam’s Wooly Bully when seen in performance, perhaps he had a point.
[I have a number of memories of this classmate saying something to which my unstated reaction was, “Dude, you are so full of it”- so not surprising that we were on opposite ends of the virtues of rock song literary analysis. Decades later I found out that he was a red diaper baby- so I would have also disagreed with his father, due to all the Iron Curtain refugees I knew.Whom this classmate didn’t know.]
It isn’t that lyrics were always unimportant to me- obscured by the beat and the volume- though they often were. I recall being asked in Argentina to translate the lyrics of a rock song. After listening to the song, my reply was that as I had no idea what they were singing in English, I couldn’t translate into Spanish.
Lyrics could be important to me- but for their immediate emotional affect, not for doing any literary analysis. For example, the Stones song “As Tears Go By” had and still has an immediate emotional affect on me- an affect greatly influenced by the lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6PsahByRUU Rolling Stones- ” As Tears Go By.”
Great analysis, Neo – I always liked the song, but never paid enough attention to understand or appreciate the lyrics until your post.
Another song that, to me at least, stands out for its attitude of resignation without blame-the-other bitterness or vows to keep trying to right things is “White Flag” by Dido:
And when we meet
Which I’m sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I’ll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I’ve moved on.
For MJR, Geez, did I blow that or what? Del Shannon covered the song (lamely). Let’s hear it for instant truth on the net!
Gringo wrote:
For example, the Stones song “As Tears Go By” had and still has an immediate emotional affect on me–an affect greatly influenced by the lyrics.
That’s it. I knew there was a Stones song that I associated with “Walk Away Renee” and “Tears Go By” is the one. Another sad song with classical strings and the “Bach-Rock” sound.
I wondered if the Stones copied, or were influenced by, “Renee”, but Wikipedia says “Tears” was released in 1965 while “Renee” was released in 1966. So perhaps the influence went in the other direction. Anyway, I much prefer “Renee.”
The Wiki article on “Tears Go By” speculates that its “heavy string” arrangement might have been influenced by the Beatles’ “Yesterday” (which IMHO crosses the line into maudlin territory).
This is an intelligent and perceptive analysis — better than much of the explication I’ve seen on literary sites. Thank you for sharing.
Pingback:The band that just walked away, Renee | M.C. Tuggle, Writer
Ralph Kinney Bennett, 3:14 pm —
I always liked Del Shannon. I wasn’t what you’d call a fan, so I was not aware he had ever covered “She Cried”.
You write, “Del Shannon covered the song (lamely).” To be honest [like there’s an alternative?], I would not at all characterize his rendition of “She Cried” as “lame”!
By the way, speaking of Del Shannon, ever hear the Traveling Wilburys’ treatment of “Runaway”?
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEPx9bkpkh8 )
(The Traveling Wilburys were George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne (ELO frontman), and Roy Orbison — although Roy had left us when the Wilburys recorded “Runaway”. It was rumored once that Del Shannon might become a Wilbury, but there never was anything to that.)
Regards,
M J R
Posts such as this one ensure my return. Thank you.
_______________________________________
Another more famous song beginning, mid-sentence:
“And I Love Her”, The Beatles
Paul McCartney wrote it for Jane Asher.
They broke up in 1968.
For MJR: Thanks. I listened to the Shannon version again and you’re right; not that bad. DS had a sad end. I’m a huge fan of the Wilburys (and of Orbison from his very first recording). I’m still numb from having forgotten Jay and the Americans and grateful for your kindness in straightening me out. Well, we’ve imposed enough on Neo’s space. Thanks again.
The human experience.
Nothing such as love is so uniquely intimate yet so universally common.
Nothing quite captures such moments as does a song of interest during a time when the heart is laid bare to love. Not a camera. Nor poetry. And certainly not the unaided memory.
clarityseeker: I almost made the same mistake regarding “And I Love Her.” Great song, but it doesn’t begin in midstream with the word “and”:
I give her all my love
That’s all I do
And if you saw my love
You’d love her too
I should have articulated better. Title begins mid-sentence.
Ralph Kinney Bennett, 8:07 pm — [fan] “of Orbison from his very first recording.”
I have been a major fan of Roy Orbison since “Only the Lonely” in 1960. I’d never heard of him before that, and looking back, I canNOT say I’m a fan of his Sun Records rockabilly origins, although I do dig a couple of his early pre-1960 efforts. But a lot of them rate a big “meh”, in my rarely humble opinion.
But yes, as you confess, “we’ve imposed enough on Neo’s space.” Okay, over and out!
This song reminds me of how the most powerful experiences of love can happen over just a fleeting few weeks in a summer. And the rest of the world seems cruelly oblivious to two ordinary people experiencing that having to end.
Its a great song.
Thank you for this Neo. I remember this song, which I always liked, from when I was a kid — but even the, I could still feel its emotion. It means more now, and looking back carefully at the lyrics, I can see why it would have a resonance. Beautifully done! The heart on a wall, small but so significant and the empty street… restrained yet deeply felt. Really a gem…
I couldn’t wait for this 2nd part too. There was so little to find on this band and I loved the memories of the song. What I thought was so interesting was this song was about the girlfriend of another band member. How in the world would this be sung so often and affect their relationships for all of them. Can you even imagine!