"God Gave Rock and Roll to You"

I listened to Encore yester-day and noticed a small feature in "God Gave Rock and Roll to You."  In Rod's line "To ev'ry boy he gave a song to be sung" in the middle section, the phrase "ev'ry boy" is sung to notes of all different pitches (F# G# A), giving a sense of number.  This is also in the studio version (on In Deep).

In comparing the two recordings, I discovered that the live version on Encore lacks the repeated line "To ev'ry boy he gave a song" in the coda.  The same feature is there, but the melody is different, so the pitches to which "ev'ry boy" is sung are F# G A (I think they're also an octave higher than those in the middle section).

"Baby Don't You Cry No More"

Earlier this week, I watched the clips from Rod Argent's A Keyboard Approach that the Zombies Fan Club posted on YouTube years ago.  I realized that the short line "Walk away" in "Baby Don't You Cry No More" is sung to a diatonic phrase (E F# G#), giving a sense of the steps involved in this "walk[ing]."

I also referenced the studio versions (Rod's solo version on Red House and the version with Colin on Out of the Shadows) and discovered some differences between them.  First, in the Red House version, the section with "Walk away / Sad to say / Love's grown thin..." is present only musically, not lyrically.  Apparently, the words were a later development.  Second, the two versions are in different keys, so the "Walk away" in the Out of the Shadows version is sung to the pitches F G A.

"You Who Are Lonely"

In the lines "You, you who are lonely know / How slowly time can go" in "You Who Are Lonely," "go" is sung with a melisma (C B), giving a sense of this (metaphorical) movement.  Additionally, the small musical interval (a half step) even matches the modifying "slowly."

"Something Happens When You Touch Me"

The line "Many times I told myself, 'You're sittin' here left on the shelf all by yourself'" in "Something Happens When You Touch Me" exhibits internal rhyme.  Other lines in the song have this feature, too, but this particular instance holds some significance:  the repetition of the same sound matches the singularity that the narrator is describing.

"Weak for You"

"Long" in the line "We've been just good friends far too long" at the beginning of "Weak for You" is sung with a melisma (G# F# E), giving a sense of either the word's meaning or the degree of "far too."

"Beginning"

I listened to Journey a couple days ago and noticed a handful of small features.

In the lines "My mind is singing / With all we've said" in "Beginning," the phrase "all we've said" is sung to notes of all different pitches (E F# G), lending a sense of breadth or entirety.

The same sort of effect is in the line "Ev'rything falls in the middle," where "ev'rything" is also sung to notes of all different pitches (A B C).

I referenced the version on The Ghost of You and Me and discovered that it's in a different key, so while these features are present there, too, the specific pitches are different (D E F and G A Bb, respectively).

"A Man for All Reasons"

When I listened to Nexus recently, I also noticed a small feature in "A Man for All Reasons."  In the line "All his life will be unknown" in the sort of counterpoint vocal part, the phrase "all his life" is sung to notes of all different pitches (A G E), lending some sense of this entirety.

"Thunder and Lightning"

I listened to Nexus a couple days ago and noticed some significance in the structure of "Thunder and Lightning."

Obviously, the chorus repeats, and this repetition emphasizes the "Again and again and again and again..." in the last line.  The polysyndeton there (the repeated "and") highlights this recurrence, too.

"Summertime"

I recently listened to Gershwin's Porgy & Bess performed by the Bethlehem Orchestra.  In that version of "Summertime," "wings" in the line "Then you're gonna spread your wings and take to the sky" is sung with a melisma, lending a sense of this "spread[ing]."  While this articulation isn't present in the Zombies' version, I realized that there's an-other musical feature that provides a similar effect:  after "spread your wings," the bass plays a group of notes that span a sixth (A D E F).

"Christmas for the Free"

A couple months ago, I listened to Argent's In Deep (on vinyl, even).  Recently, I finally got around to researching something I noticed about "Christmas for the Free" (which is also true of the version the Zombies recorded for Breathe Out, Breathe In).

I noted before that the lines "Blunt is the pain of hunger / Cold is the wind of grief" are inverted so that the predicate adjectives precede their subjects and consequently receive some emphasis.  When I listened to the song again recently, I realized that the particular sonic qualities of blunt and cold carry a sort of inherent emphasis of their own.  If I understand the phonetics correctly, the initial sound of each word is a plosive (labial and velar, respectively).  This force at the beginning of the words combines with their unusual placement in the syntax and results in an even stronger accentuation.

"You Could Be My Love"

Yester-day was the anniversary of the Zombies concert at Abbey Road Studios in 2021, so I watched the DVD again.  I noticed some significance in the articulation of a line in "You Could Be My Love" (which is also present in the version on Different Game).  "Can't begin to think without you" in the chorus is sung with some gaps in between the words, not exactly staccato but definitely not completely legato either.  These interruptions demonstrate the difficulty that the narrator would experience in stringing together a coherent thought without his love.

"A Sign from Me to You"

"A Sign from Me to You" exhibits the opposite sort of feature as "Exclusively for Me."  There's incessant guitar strumming throughout the song, and this constancy matches the "always" and maybe even the "many, many" in the first verse:

You say all you wanted was a sign, my love

Something to show that I am always with you

I could give you many, many signs, my love

But I'm afraid that I may just confuse you