Young Rascals | How Can I Be Sure

The Young Rascals’ “How Can I Be Sure” was a 1967 follow-up to “Groovin‘” and was influenced by The Beatles, for whom The Young Rascals opened their landmark 1965 Shea Stadium concert, the Montgomery News reports: “The only reason we were brave enough to do that (release a ballad in ¾ time as a single) was The Beatles did ‘Michelle’ and ‘Yesterday.’” remembers co-writer Felix Cavaliere.

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die puts the band in context with its era: “Though The Young Rascals started as a down-and-dirty garage-rock band with an R&B fringe, by 1967, bandleaders Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati, and Gene Cornish—like the rest of their songwriting generation—were looking to push pop into the psychedelic era, while loading it up with some of the sophisticated elements that had charmed their parents decades earlier.”

The tune reached #4 on the US pop charts and #1 in Canada and is certainly a departure from the band’s harder-edged origins. According to Songfacts, “The Young Rascals’ original version didn’t hit in the UK and the first time it charted was in 1970 when a revival by Dusty Springfield scraped into the charts at #36. Two years later David Cassidy, who was at the time along with The Osmonds the most popular teen idol in the UK, went all the way to the top of the British singles chart with his cover.”

The tune flips back and forth between D major and D minor throughout and pivots to C major briefly at the end of the chorus (for the first time at 0:47 – 0:51).