There is undoubtedly something of Roy Orbison in Paul Claxton’s sublimely high vocal register, and I know I’m not the first to spot the similarity, but it’s undeniable and unmissable. The “Oh Pretty Woman” staccato beats only underline this connection. But, by the time you get to the end of “Left Haunting You” you have to admit to that being only one of many reference points.
Early Motown records, 60’s cosmic country, 70’s Americana, pop, soul, and new wave sounds all leave their fingerprints on the song. Yet, for all those myriad and marvelous influences and inspirations, it still sounds as much the product of the here and now as something that could have existed way back then, at least outside some short-lived psychedelic band who managed to hold it together for only a handful of gigs before imploding in a blaze of drug-fuelled brilliance.
“Left Haunting You” is as brilliant as it is unexpected, the sound of so many styles and genres being mixed, matched, merged, and melded that it could not possibly work. But it does. Brilliantly.
It’s a song out of time, one that you can’t place on any music chronology, but one that somehow has an element of all eras. A song so impossibly wrought that you can’t help but keep playing it just to work out the secret to how it could possibly work.
Well, I know what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the day!
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