If that's what I have to do

Cause you mean a lot to me

I'll do anything for you

A few cuts on Marshall Crenshaw are positively eerie. "Soldier of Love" might very well be a track the Fab Four couldn't find room for on Beatles '65. "The Usual Thing" sounds strikingly like the Everly Brothers. But Crenshaw has done more than just successfully emulate his illustrious forebears. Rather, he is their logical successor, the latest link in an exquisite chain that began with Holly, hooked around Liverpool, latched onto California and then began to rust.

In what may become the ultimate footnote to rock history, it is worth nothing that Crenshaw got his start by playing the part of John Lennon in Beatlemania. Clearly, singing "Help," "Strawberry Fields" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" night after night rubbed off. And if you listen carefully enough, there are moments when Crenshaw brings the Walrus back to life.

Of course, a solitary album constitutes little on which to build a legend. Quite possibly, Crenshaw will be just another of rock's firecrackers, sparkling brilliantly for a few seconds and then disappearing forever. But his album bears too much promise, indeed too much immediate confirmation, to dismiss Crenshaw as a flash in the pan.