"Love Left a Long Time Ago"

The line "And all of those words, they didn't mean a thing" in "Love Left a Long Time Ago" contains a pleonasm, and while this redundant "they" isn't necessary grammatically, it does provide a sense of amount (for "all").

"Memphis"

I'd long suspected that the line "Changing my life with its freedom ring" in "Memphis" contained an allusion to something, and I finally placed it.  Ultimately, it seems to refer to the last line of the first stanza of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee":

My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring.

"What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"

I recently listened to Colin Blunstone's Collected again.  I have many notes (some from previous times I listened to the album) that I'm going to wait to write about until I've become more familiar with those songs, but over the next few days, I'll have some posts about small features I noticed in the songs I already know fairly well.

Significantly, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" doesn't resolve.  The version on Collected just fades out, and even the live versions by the Zombies (on Odessey and Oracle {Revisited} and Live at Metropolis Studios) don't end on the tonic.  (I'm pretty sure the song is in Ab major but the live versions end with a C note.)  This lack of a definite musical conclusion matches the open-ended nature of the titular question.

Odessey and Oracle

I'd read in The "Odessey" (p. 17) that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec "is shown in the Oracle's 'O'" on the cover of Odessey and Oracle:

I happened to see a picture of him yester-day (since it was his birthday) and discovered that his image on the album cover is apparently based on an actual photograph, taken by Paul Sescau in 1894:

[source]

"I'm Going Home"

I listened to the first disc of The BBC Radio Sessions yester-day and realized that the musical resolution at the end of "I'm Going Home" provides a sort of fulfillment of the title line.

"I'll Keep Trying"

Last week, I was thinking about "I'll Keep Trying" and had a couple realizations about the chorus, specifically this section:

'Cause I'll keep tryin' 'til you come on home

Keep tryin' 'til my time has come

Keep tryin' 'til you come on home to me

It's sung to a melody something like this:

The notes to which the "tryin'"s are sung have the longest values (aside from the one to which "me" at the end is sung), and this extended duration matches the persistency of "keep."

The repetition of "keep tryin'" (as anaphora in the lead vocals and as a sort of stretto in the overdubbed backing vocals) also gives a sense of constancy.

"Lonely Hard Road"

I was thinking about "Lonely Hard Road" yester-day and realized that the shift to a slower tempo part-way through the song (at about 2:39) lends a sense of the narrator's weariness.

"It's Hard to Say Goodbye"

I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD reissue of Planes and Never Even Thought earlier this week and noticed a small feature in "It's Hard to Say Goodbye."  In the line "Instead of always running," "running" is sung with a melisma (Ab Ab Gb Eb), giving a sense either of movement or of the duration of the modifying "always."

When I referenced the song again, I also noticed that "near" in the line "Always coming so near" is sung with nearly the same melisma (Ab Gb Eb), here giving a sense of degree (for "so").

[Note that the song is sort of in between keys.  I skewed towards Eb major, although I'm almost certain that this re-issue runs a bit fast and that everything sounds a half-step higher than it should, but that's a topic for a separate post.]

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

In the line "Blinding out all eyes" in "I Am the Dance of Ages," "eyes" is sung with a melisma (G F), lending a small sense of the entirety of "all."  I'd noticed this before but apparently neglected to write about it.  I was reminded of it yester-day when I listened to the 14 December 1972 Argent concert.  I also realized that the note values contribute to this sense of entirety, too:  the two notes to which "eyes" is sung have longer durations than the other notes in the line.

"I Remember When I Loved Her"

I recently read about "I Remember When I Loved Her" in Platts' Times and Seasons (p. 91) and realized that the song's structure matches its theme in a way.  Elements of the song (especially the title line) are reiterated with little or no variation, and this changeless repetition mirrors the static nature of the past on which the narrator is looking back.

(I also learned that there's an Italian version of the song titled "Mio amore sta lontano" ["My Love Is Far Away"].  I found an official copy of it on YouTube.)

"In My Mind a Miracle"

This morning, I was thinking about "In My Mind a Miracle," specifically the line "No longer blind, I see because of you" and realized that it may indicate a number of possible influences.

It seems to come ultimately from the account in John 9 where Jesus gives a blind man his sight.  Afterwards, the Pharisees conduct a lengthy interrogation of the man, and in verse 25, he replies, "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see," which has roughly the same structure as the line in the Zombies song.

John 9:25 is also one of the sources for the lines "I once was lost but now am found, / Was blind but now I see!" in "Amazing Grace."  (The other is Luke 15:24.)

In "In My Mind a Miracle," though, this regaining of sight (probably more metaphorical) is attributed to the charms of a girl, so it's more like Muddy Waters' "She Moves Me," which seems to borrow from the John 9 account (perhaps indirectly via "Amazing Grace") in the lines "She shook her finger at a blind man / 'Once was blind but now I see.'"  I don't know if Rod Argent, who wrote "In My Mind a Miracle," was familiar with this particular song, but he was certainly a fan of Muddy Waters.  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes (p. 45), Paul Atkinson explains that the Zombies covered "I've Got My Mojo Working" because Rod "wanted to do it" (Johansen notes in Hung up on a Dream [p. 62] that the Zombies even performed "I've Got My Mojo Working" at the Herts Beat Competition).

Counterpoints

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (31 October 1975), Argent's Counterpoints (RCA RS 1020) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. release (U.A. UA-LA-560-G) was on 2 February 1976.

Additionally, "Rock & Roll Show" b/w "It's Fallin' Off" (RCA 2624) was released as a single in the U.K.