2:42 - Desiree

The Left Banke: Desiree

[purchase]

It's a mini-theme for the day: great songs from albums made by bands in the midst of falling apart. First the Byrds (David Crosby left the band before Notororious Byrd Brothers was completed), now the Left Banke. This track comes from the Left Banke's second album The Left Banke Too, and is probably their most well-known track next to "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina."

Too was barely an album, and followed a bizarre controversy amongst the band. Michael Brown was the keyboardist and main songwriter (but not the singer), and his father had a lot to do with the band getting their shit together in the first place. After the success of their first album (on which "Renee" and "Ballerina" can be found), Brown hired a bunch of session musicians to record a followup single. The rest of the band protested rather noisily, leading radio programmers to shun the new single. Later that year the group reunited with Brown long enough to write "Desiree" and a couple other tracks, but then they fell apart again. The group cobbled together Left Banke Too and trudged on for a few years more with rotating keyboardists, but they never found a better songwriter.