“Lusty, loneful”-Let’s Pretend

[Lew Bundles]

Rolling Stones top 75 boy bands songs…

https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/boy-band-songs-greatest-14732/the-raspberries-lets-pretend-1974-14773/

#36

The Raspberries, “Let’s Pretend” (1974)

The Raspberries kicked off their 1972 debut with the sexually charged “Go All the Way,” but they always knew that somehow, someday, things are gonna be so different. On “Let’s Pretend,” they cranked up the romance notch to the max, unleashing a dreamy power-pop ballad complete with Eric Carmen’s swooning vocals about the night lasting forever. Carmen would continue to release lustful, lonely bops throughout his solo career (“All By Myself,” “Hungry Eyes”), but he’d return to his boy band days in the Raspberries for inspiration. “I thought ‘Let’s Pretend’ was one of the best melodies I’d ever written,” he said in 2002. “That’s why I went back and used it for the chorus of “All By Myself.”