THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,952) The Montage — “Men Are Building Sand”
Left Banke mastermind Michael Brown wrote this exquisite polyphonic baroque pop number with an early environmentalist theme, originally an unreleased LB song, with Bert Sommer and Tom Feher. It wouldn’t have sounded out of place on an album of Renaissance choral works. “All the trees are becoming scarce Beams replacing what once was grass”
Richie Unterberger explains that Brown instructed Feher “to fill in words for songs starting as little more than off-the-wall titles like . . . ‘Men Are Building Sand.’ [Feher] was the original lyricist . . . but ‘I wasn’t coing up with what Mike wanted,’ and Sommer was enlisted to complete the tune.” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Montage)
Mark Hoffman writes that:
The [Montage (see #252, 1,091, 1,420)] song that gets the most controversy is “Men Are Building Sand” because of “The Note”. The lead singer complained please don’t put that on the album with “The Note”. Michael Brown insisted that’s the way it should go. On the Left Banke version it’s arranged differently. It doesn’t stick out quite as much. Have some fun. Listen to this track and see if you can find “The Note”.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/358507207130851/posts/480974201550817/
Hoffman then reveals that “The note [accompanying the word] sand was the one that they did not want to sing. They told Michael it’s a wrong note, but Michael insisted that it wasn’t.” (https://www.facebook.com/groups/358507207130851/posts/480974201550817)
As to Brown and Montage, Unterberger explains that:
After walking away from the Left Banke, Michael Brown, “who had been the group’s chief artistic force as principal songwriter, arranger, and keyboardist — worked with Montage to continue in [a] splendid Baroque pop/rock vein”.
Brown . . . mastermind[ed] an entire LP of material that was both similar to, and nearly on par with the Left Banke’s unsurpassed fusion of pop-rock and classical music. . . . [T]he graceful baroque-tinged melodies could have been no one else’s.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/montage-mn0001206263), liner notes to Montage
Jack Rabid tells us more:
Montage sounds far more like the real follow-up to the Left Banke’s first LP, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, than the actual one, The Left Banke, Too. This is because after the first LP the band’s three singers had sadly parted ways with keyboardist and prime songwriter Michel Brown, who instead became Montage’s mentor/mastermind. (It’s a long story: Brown’s dad was managing the band to the distrust of the other members and Brown, like Brian Wilson, similarly disdained touring in favor of staying home to write and record.) And though Brown was not technically a Montage member, he not only wrote [almost] all the music and produced this LP, but he also played all the trademark piano and organ and charted the vocal arrangements. Yet the four New Jersey no-names he found clearly translated his vision of extraordinarily lush, unspeakably beautiful orchestral chart pop. . . .
Here is the Left Banke:
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