"Care of Cell 44"

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Yester-day I realized a possible influence on "Care of Cell 44."  In the song, there's the line "writing this letter, hoping you're OK," which reminded me of a post I recently wrote about this same sort of epistolary writing in the Beatles' "P.S. I Love You" and "When I'm Sixty-Four."  I'm not sure if "When I'm Sixty-Four" had been released by the time "Care of Cell 44" was written (although it had certainly been released by the time "Care of Cell 44" was recorded; it was released on 1 June '67 on Sgt. Pepper, and "Care of Cell 44" was recorded on 16 & 17 August '67), but by 1967 "P.S. I Love You" had been out for five years (it was the B-side to the Beatles' first single), and it starts off with the line "as I write this letter."

Epistolary writing certainly wasn't a new concept (at least not as a literary concept; I'm not sure of the extent of its history as far as its lyrical application), but considering how often Rod Argent has mentioned the Beatles' influence, there might be some connection between "P.S. I Love You" and "Care of Cell 44."

I haven't read it for awhile, but I'm pretty sure that Claes Johansen mentions something akin to this in his book The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream.  His point is that both bands have songs that are conversations between two people and that concern a third party ("Tell Her No" and "She Loves You," for examples), which illustrates an-other similar outlook on communication.  It occurs to me that "Friends of Mine" fits into that paradigm too:

When we're all in a crowd and you catch her eye
And then you both smile, I feel so good inside
And when I'm with her, she talks about you
The things that you say, the things that you do

In some ways, "Tell Her No" and "Friends of Mine" are two sides of the same coin.

"Like Honey" and "Lula Lula"

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Way back in May 2012, I noted the similarities between the opening guitar figures for the Zombies' "Lula Lula" (on the New World album) and Argent's "Like Honey" (the first track on Argent).  (I'm actually sort of embarrassed about how insistent I was.  And I think I was wrong; everything I've found credits "Like Honey" to Argent and White.)  After learning both of them (both of the guitar parts at least), I discovered that they both start with an arpeggiated A minor.  Recently, I realized that both also contain chromatic phrases within the arpeggios.

In "Like Honey," the chromatic phrase is in that opening arpeggiated part.  While the higher notes mostly stay around A minor, the bottom note of the arpeggios goes from A to G to F# to F to E (incidentally, this phrase - A G F# F E - is also part of the bass line in the Zombies' "Indication").

"Lula Lula" is the opposite.  In the part after the opening, the bottom note goes up - from E to F to F# to G.

So, along with the same opening arpeggiated A minor, both songs have a chromatic figure from G to E.  One going up and one going down.

Remembering

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Two nights ago, I was thinking about Odessey and Oracle (which is apparently a thing I do with some regularity), specifically how "Beechwood Park" begins with "Do you remember summer days just after summer rain?," and "Brief Candles" has the line "Brief candles in his mind, bright and tiny gems of memory."  So, memory or remembering are in two sequential songs on the album.

But then I got thinking about memory/remembering in other songs.  It also starts "Hung up on a Dream" (so, three sequential songs) - "Well, I remember yesterday."  And it's in "This Will Be Our" year, albeit in an opposite sort of way - "And I won't forget."

And, of course, back in the Decca days, there's "I Remember When I Loved Her" and "Remember You."

I've been working on transcribing the lyrics, but I haven't been putting too much effort into it (I've been working on other stuff, and even when I do work on transcription, I physically write it out, so I don't get much more than a line or two at a time).  Finding this makes me wonder whether there are other prominent themes.  There are at least two songs each for home/domesticity, dreams, and crying.  And, obviously, love is a pretty obvious theme, but looking for love songs isn't something I find particularly interesting.

At some point, I'd like to make a concordance of the lyrics (which would certainly help in finding these themes), but it seems like a pretty formidable task, and I'm not exactly sure how I would do it.

"She's Coming Home"

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It turns out I grossly neglected the organ parts in "She's Coming Home."  I thought only the middle part had organ, which is hilariously wrong now that I know otherwise.  I think in some of the beginning parts, it's the same as the backing vocals, but I'd have to listen to both again to compare it.

This isn't the best recording, performance-wise.  My piano playing is mediocre (as always), my organ playing actually has too much legato in some parts, and some of the E major chords on guitar during the middle part are a bit twangy because I accidentally ran my finger into the high E string.  (I improved the accuracy of that part too.  I'd thought those guitar chords were present during the whole middle part, but they're not.)  Also, I think I missed a bass note near the end.

I find it a bit odd that the organ part doesn't copy the whole E D E G A B A# A phrase.  It cuts off after the B.  I'm not sure if that phrase is repeated on organ at the very end either, but I included it anyway.

I took the stereo version of "She's Coming Home" from The Decca Stereo Anthology, split the two channels, and put the right channel in mono in order to hear the organ parts better.  It's still hard to make out some things, but I feel a bit better having corrected my oversight to some degree.

Paul Atkinson

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[source]

I'm sure these have been posted before, but I just rediscovered them.

In looking through them, I noticed that Paul Atkinson took off his scarf (seen in the first picture) and hung it on the mic stand for his amp (second picture), which I find inexplicably funny.

"I Know She Will"

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I finally got around to combining the guitar part and the bass part for "I Know She Will."  The bass part changes during the solo, but I'm not sure if what I have here is right.

This is based off the version on Zombie Heaven.  The demo that's a bonus track on one release of Begin Here has a different bass part (more notes during the guitar phrases and B notes in some places where this has E notes), and - while I haven't listened to it extensively - the version on Into the Afterlife might differ a bit too.

"Leave Me Be"

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Yester-day I figured out the bass part and some of the organ part for "Leave Me Be."  I just played chords for the organ part because I don't have all of it figured out yet.

I went back and listened to the demo version to see if it would help in figuring out anything, and I realized that the demo version has electric piano where the final version has organ.  It's the same with "Woman" and "Kind of Girl," which were demoed at the same time as the "Leave Me Be" demo and recorded at the same time as the final version of "Leave Me Be."  So apparently, it was between 13 and 31 August 1964 (between recording those demos and recording the final backing tracks) that Rod Argent got his Vox Continental organ.

I might have a bit of the guitar solo wrong too, but I've been playing it that way for at least a year.

"She Loves the Way They Love Her"

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I just figured out most of the chords for "She Loves the Way They Love Her."  And I'm sort of suspicious that some the parts I don't know don't really have chords.

And I wrote them down!  Because I'm prone to forgetting this sort of thing.

"Care of Cell 44"

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I thought I had the vocal arrangements for the a cappella part of "Care of Cell 44" figured out, but re-listening to it, I think I forgot a note.  Still, this is pretty close.

"I Could Spend the Day"

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A lot of things in this aren't accurate (the bass part in the middle, my lack of vocal ornamentation, chords where they're only implied not actually played), but I tried to do as complete a version as I could.

I still don't know the whole bass part, but I know four more notes than I did last time.

PledgeMusic Campaign

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I pre-ordered the signed vinyl of the new Zombies album through the PledgeMusic campaign, and I got this in the mail to-day.

When I first looked, they'd sold out of the signed copies, but about a week ago, they added 100 more (each) of the signed CDs and signed vinyls.  I got the first of the added 100 vinyls.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but the end of Rod's name looks a bit like a Z, for Zombies.

"She's Not There" b/w "You Make Me Feel Good"

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Fifty years ago to-day (7 September 1964), the Zombies' debut single ("She's Not There" b/w "You Make Me Feel Good") was released in the U.S. and Canada on Parrot Records (PAR 9695).

Recording Session

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Fifty years ago to-day (5 September 1964), the Zombies recorded the vocal tracks to "Leave Me Be," "Kind of Girl," "Sometimes," and "Woman."

"Kind of Girl"

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I finally figured out that part of "Kind of Girl" that I was stuck on.  And it wins the award for weirdest key changes.  Most of the song is in E minor, but the "but more of that another day" part first goes to G major (the relative major) and then - I think - Bb major.  And, like, I don't know all that much about key changes and tonality and such, but it strikes me as a really weird key change.

Also, in thinking about the song, I realized that I'd discovered only part of the interesting thing about the implied E D C B diatonic phrase.  In the introductory part, it's the root of each of the chords, and at the end, it's the root for the first three and then the fifth of the last one.  But during the verses, the chords are Em D C G B.  So that B note is also present as the major third in G major (G, B, D).  As you progress through the song, the B note in the E D C B phrase goes from root (B, D#, F#) to major third (G, B, D) to fifth (E, G, B).  It would be interesting if the bass part includes that diatonic phrase, but I haven't even started trying to learn it yet.  (I'm not sure how well I explained that….)

Since the key changes are so weird, I felt I should do the vocals for this, just to tie it together a bit more.  My voice isn't particularly suited for it though.

"Kind of Girl"

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Because "Kind of Girl" and "Sometimes" were recorded fifty years ago this week (the backing tracks on 31 August and the vocal tracks on 5 September) but I don't know any parts of either, I've felt bad and have recently been trying to learn the chords for "Kind of Girl."  I have only one part left before I know at least a rough version of the whole song, but I noticed something interesting about it.

As far as I've figured out, it starts with a descending progression - Em D C B.  And a similar sort of progression is at the very end - Em D C Em (with the second E minor lower than the first).  What's interesting is that these two chord progressions both contain the same descending diatonic phrase (E D C B).  In the opening progression, that phrase is the root of each of the chords.  In the progression at the end, that descending phrase is still present, but the B note is present as the fifth in E minor (E, G, B) instead of the root in B major (B, D#, F#).

It's an interesting way to retain that phrase yet still return to the tonic in order to signal the end of the song.

"A Love That Never Was"

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I've been sort of obsessed with chromatic phrases sneaked into songs lately, and I discovered an-other one last night.  Provided I have the chords correct, there's a chromatic phrase from F# to B in the chords in "A Love That Never Was" - during the "and there is nothing there / no one needs to cry" part.

D major (D, F#, A)

D minor (D, F, A)

A major (A, C#, E)

B major (B, D#, F#)

B minor (B, D, F#)

A major (A, C#, E)

A minor (A, C, E)

E major (E, G#, B)

I'd noticed before that it was a weird chord progression, what with sequential changes from a major to a minor with the same root, but until last night, I'd never noticed that chromatic phrase hidden within the chords.