Top Gear

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According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (26 February 1965), the Zombies recorded "Rip It Up" and "Can't Nobody Love You" for the Top Gear radio show (tracks 11 and 12 on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven).  It was broadcast on 6 March (incidentally, Hugh Grundy's 20th birthday).

Journey

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Colin Blunstone's Journey was released in the UK to-day in 1974, so I listened to it.  (I've started doing this thing where I listen to the albums on their release dates in order to become more familiar with them.  Otherwise, I don't listen to some that often.)  In listening to it, I found a lot of interesting things.

I talked about some of the structure of "Wonderful" back in November, but I found two more things.  First, the progression between two lines in iterations of the bridge (possibly not really a bridge; I don't know how to classify it).  "I need you more than ever now, my love" becomes "I want you more than ever now, my love."  Interestingly, this same sort of thing is in a line from "Shadow of a Doubt" - "You're the very last thing I want; the first thing that I need."

Second - and not as interesting - there's also alliteration in the line "High in the hall."

There's a slight lyrical resemblance between "Beginning" and "Maybe after He's Gone."  "Beginning" has the line "Oh, self-doubt surrounds you in the night," and "Maybe after He's Gone" has "Night surrounds me."  I'm not sure, but the line "Let us begin by beginning" might also reference the Zombies' album Begin Here.

"Keep the Curtains Closed Today" contains some typical Zombie themes of home and crying.  There are the lines "Could this be just the start of coming home" and "Just wish you well and hope that we don't cry."

"Beware" also mentions typical themes of dreams, memories, and crying (tears):

So hard to be alone with these forgotten dreams
No bitterness could drive away the tears
No other one will take the place you have inside
I know the memories will last a million years

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, "Beware" was written by Argent and White (they also wrote "Wonderful").

I think it's also interesting that both iterations in the chorus of "Beware" have a word that doesn't fit into the rhyme scheme.  The first iteration:

Beware as you wander through the years
Beware that you keep your heart from fears
Take care, my love, to share your love
And though the road's been long
I'll say goodbye, and I was wrong
And I've been lovin' you too long
But now I love you more than ever so beware

And the second iteration:

Beware and I know your heart can sing
Beware for I wish your everything
Take care, my love, to share your love
And though the road's been long
I'll say goodbye, and I was wrong
And I've been lovin' you too long
But now I love you more than ever so beware, my love

In both, "your love" doesn't really fit with the pattern.  There's "years," "fears," the outlier "love," and then "long," "wrong," and "long."  The second iteration keeps the last three but switches the first group to "sing," "everything," and - again - the outlier "love."  It seems like it should be two groups of three and then the final line, but - perhaps significantly - the love doesn't cooperate.

"It's Magical" and "You Who Are Lonely" both contain lines about dreams.  "It's Magical" has "And when I go to sleep / All the dreams of you are mine to keep," but the dream reference in "You Who Are Lonely" is much more interesting.  The complete verse:

And a home without love
Is no home at all
I'm hanging on to a dream
Waiting to fall

There's the bit about home common to Zombies songs, but the line with the dream has "hanging on to," which immediately brought the Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream" to mind.  The last two verses of "Hung up on a Dream" seem to describe what the speaker/singer in "You Who Are Lonely" has lost:

They spoke with soft, persuading words
About a living creed of gentle love
And turned me on to sounds unheard
And showed me strangest, clouded sights above 

Which gentled touched my aching mind
And soothed the wanderings of my troubled brain
Sometimes I think I'll never find
Such purity and peace of mind again

Like the "love" in "Beware," "You Who Are Lonely" seems to have a significant inconsistency in that there's a line missing in the choruses:

You, you who are lonely know
How slowly time can go
When winds of sadness blow 

You, you who are lonely see
To be alone is not to be free
Nobody knows like me
And you who are lonely

There isn't a line to complete the first quatrain, as if to mirror the speaker/singer's lack of companionship.

"A Sign from Me to You"

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I kept thinking about "A Sign from Me to You" last night, so I learned the chords and even had the opportunity to-day to do the vocals.  I should note that I don't have the strumming pattern the same, some of the vocal phrasing might not match, and I guessed at some of the backing vocals.  This also starts kind of suddenly because there isn't much lead-time in the track.  This is the second of four songs on the album that all run into each other.

The chords on this are really weird.  The first change is A minor to A major.  And then there's D minor, so there's a chromatic phrase (C to C# to D) in the first three chords.  Also there's a change from Bm to F at the end of the choruses.  Aside from an E, the verses are in A minor, and aside from that F, the choruses are in D major.  There's an-other section (for the introduction and under the guitar solos), but I think that changes keys too much to describe.

This morning, I remembered that the Zombies performed the Beatles' "From Me to You" earlier in their career, so now I feel that that connection is slightly more tenable.

This is an-other new one in the catalogue.

Ennismore

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I just listened to Colin Blunstone's Ennismore while working on transcribing the lyrics, and - as usual - I noticed some things.

To go along with the conjectured influences I've been writing about lately, "A Sign from Me to You" might have some connection with the Beatles' "From Me to You."  In the phrase "from me to you" if nothing else.  I haven't looked into that very much.  More tenuously, the phrase "oh boy" in "Pay Me Later" might come from Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!"  Since it's also just a phrase that people say, I'm not that confident in that connection.

There's an interesting progression of verb tenses in "A Sign from Me to You."  The first chorus has the line "I try so hard to prove that I have changed my ways," and the second chorus changes it to "I tried so hard to prove that I have changed my ways."  I haven't really looked into this yet either.

It struck me that many of the songs on the album contain similar sort of themes (if "themes" is the right word to describe it).  Basically, a lot of the songs talk about songs (sometimes breaking the fourth wall, or whatever the sonic equivalent is) and wine.

As far as songs, you have "This is a song written exclusively for me" in "Exclusively for Me," "Funny how the only song I could ever write for you / Is when you said you finally had enough" in "How Wrong Can One Man Be," and "Now that we've written this song / How could we dare to be wrong" in "How Could We Dare to Be Wrong."

And as for wine: "So don't you worry, I'm here for the day / With a bottle of wine on my knee" in "I Want Some More," "Hey, I said, 'Darling, it seems a waste of time / Hey, all we do is sit and drink our Spanish wine'" in "Andorra," and "Take me up, fill my cup with your wine" in "How Could We Dare to Be Wrong."

I think there's also a not insignificant number of references to remembering and summer, which seems a natural extension of Zombies themes, but I'll save that for later.

"I Don't Want to Know"

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After forgetting "I Want You Back Again," I figured I should go back and refresh some parts I hadn't played for awhile, like the bass part to "I Don't Want to Know."  And I actually learned it more accurately.  I'd thought one part was D E G A, but it's D E G F#.  That phrase is underneath the solo too, and I'd thought the bass part during the solo was different.

I think my twelve-string is too treble-y in this, but this was the best-sounding of the three series of settings I tried.  I think I missed two notes in the solo too.

"A Love That Never Was"

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Yes, I did just do a version of this two days ago, but I had the house to myself for a few hours to-day, so I did the vocals!  I even tried one phrase in the harmony vocals, although one note in it sounds a bit dicey.

My voice is slightly more suited to this than most Zombies songs, which I think is because this is one that Rod Argent sang and his voice is lower than Colin Blunstone's (although still higher than mine).

I didn't bother with the tremolo pedal on the guitar phrases; I don't think it made too much of a difference.

"I Want You Back Again"

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This is sort of embarrassing, but I kind of forgot about "I Want You Back Again."  There are a few songs that I know I haven't done much work on, but I'd forgotten that "I Want You Back Again" was one of them.  The one and only version I did of "I Want You Back Again" was in April 2013.

I should note that - except for the chords - I've pretty much forgotten the electric piano part.

In any case, two days ago, I learned the bass part.  There are some slight differences between the single version and the album version, but - except for the part during the electric piano solo - I used the single version (in the single version, the bass alternates between C and G during the solo, but I haven't quite figured out how to play that part yet [I think it's just a matter of memorization, but I haven't the time for it now], so I used the alternate version - which I think is just Cs - for that part).

It's mostly just C notes with variations in rhythm.  I might have the rhythms wrong at the beginning, in which case I've just standardized them.

There's at least one instance of two sequential half-steps (F to F# to G), and I included a second one (Eb to E to F).  Eb-to-E-to-F sounds a bit weird by itself, but it sounds OK with the electric piano part, so I'm not sure if I have that right or not.

I can't tell if it's in the original or not, but I added a bit after the choruses where the bass goes from G to C back to G.  It might just be a G in the Zombies' original; I'd have to listen more closely.  But I figured it was past time to update it.

"A Love That Never Was"

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I think it was last time I updated what I knew of "A Love That Never Was" I checked what the liner notes to Zombie Heaven had to say about it:

Rod Argent takes lead vocal on this charming mid-tempo ballad that employs several trademark Zombies' touches but unusually features little in the way of keyboards, until the very end.

I'd been totally oblivious that there were any keyboard parts in it at all, but after reading that, I did hear some at the end.  They're faint though, so I'm not sure how accurate my version is.  I also added them in the corresponding places earlier in the song (albeit an octave lower than at the end), along with the chromatic phrase hidden in the chords and an arpeggiated A major that I discovered in the bass part, which I'm still slowly progressing with.

I'm not super happy with my guitar tone in this, but there you go.

I figured this one would be a good one to do to-day, since it's Valentine's Day.

"She Does Everything for Me"

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I've been looking for a particular song that I know the Beatles covered, so I've been listening to a lot of the early Beatles albums and finding some interesting (possible) Zombies' connections.  Yester-day, I found one to "She Does Everything for Me" and remembered an-other one I've been neglecting.

The chorus to "Every Little Thing" on Beatles for Sale bears quite a lot of resemblance to that of "She Does Everything for Me."

The chorus to "Every Little Thing":

Every little thing she does
She does for me, yeah
And you know the things she does
She does for me, ooh

The chorus to "She Does Everything for Me":

She does everything for me
To make me feel alright
Everything she does for me
Makes me feel alright

Individually, both choruses say pretty much the same thing between the two couplets.  The first and third lines of each are just reshuffled, and the second and fourth are almost identical.  Both choruses also say pretty much the same thing as each other - "she does every (little) thing for me."

I don't know how to play any part of "Every Little Thing" (yet), so I don't know if there's any resemblance musically, but lyrically, they seem to be from the same mold.

I also listened to disc two of On Air - Live at the BBC, Vol. 2 yester-day, which reminded me of one musical element of "She Does Everything for Me" that I thought might have Beatle origins.  At the very end, there's a glissando from D to C# in the guitar part.  This same sort of thing is at the end of "You Can't Do That" from A Hard Day's Night.  Granted, that's three notes (F to F# to G), and it's ascending where the glissando in "She Does Everything for Me" is descending, but it still ends the song.

And of course, the usual disclaimer that these are only conjectured influences.

"Tell Her No"

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Yester-day, I listened to the first disc of the Beatles' On Air - Live at the BBC, Vol. 2, which I mention only because I found an-other possible influence that "P.S. I Love You" had on Rod Argent's writing.  And then to-day I listened to Please Please Me (so I could reference the recorded version of "P.S. I Love You") and found a few more things (although only one is relevant to this project).

I already mentioned that "P.S. I Love You" - along with some elements of "When I'm Sixty-Four" - is epistolic, just like "Care of Cell 44."  But "P.S. I Love You" also talks about remembering:

Remember that I'll always
Be in love with you

It's in the imperative here, and - as far as I know (which very possibly might be wrong) - the only instance of "remember" in the imperative in the Zombies' catalogue is in "Tell Her No":

And if she tells you, "I love you," whoa
Just remember she said that to me

They're kind of opposite in that "P.S. I Love You" is encouraging love where "Tell Her No" warns about professions of love.

In listening to Please Please Me, I also found some remembering in "Misery":

I'll remember all the little things we've done
She'll remember, and she'll miss her only one
Lonely one

That seems more Zombie-esque.

As usual, these are just conjectured influences.  I don't think there's a way I could prove any of these.

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Incidentally, I've also written about a possible connection between "Ask Me Why" from Please Please Me and the Zombies' "Woman."

"Sleep Won't Help Me"

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I inexplicably got to thinking about Argent's "Sleep Won't Help Me" this morning.  I was actually interested in the vocal melody because it pretty much follows the scale (at least as much of the melody as I've learned does), but then I learned the bass part.  Well, I learned the bass part up until it changes during the solos.

I hadn't noticed this really cool part where it sort of descends but doubles back.  It's not that easy to explain.  It's F Bb Eb Ab D G C.  Just listening to the song, I hadn't noticed that; it was only in learning the bass part that I started paying attention to it.

I briefly mentioned "Sleep Won't Help Me" in a post half a year ago, but this is the first musical part of it I've learned, so it's new to the catalogue.

"Sticks and Stones"

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I just listened to Begin Here (with bonus tracks) because it's possible that it was released fifty years ago to-day.

Regardless of that, I found something interesting about "Sticks and Stones."  The version of Begin Here that I have includes an alternate take of "Sticks and Stones" as a bonus track, and - because I was working on transcribing the lyrics as I listened to it - I discovered that the alternate take has slightly different lyrics.  One of the verses is:

People talk about us breaking up
Scandalize my name
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But I'll never be the same

In the alternate take, this verse appears twice, but it's in the released version only once.  Where it occurs in the alternate take, it's replaced in the released version with:

People talk about us breaking up
Can't let us be
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But talk don’t bother me

So while both versions have only two verses, they're more evenly distributed in the alternate take.  The released version has the "scandalize" verse only once.

The Zombies

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Verulam Cover Project:

I don't want to say that they're wrong about this (after all, it is their album, so they should know when it was released), but the book where I've been getting the dates for their releases (Greg Russo's Time of the Season: Collector's Guide) says that the LP came out in the U.S. on 8 February 1965. 

And, actually, the picture they have there is the re-issued album from 1973.  You can tell by the catalogue number (PAS 71001).  The original album was PA 61001 (and in rechanneled stereo as PAS 61001).

Reblogging because it's 8 February, so - according to Russo - the Zombies' US debut album was released 50 years ago to-day.

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

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I've been meaning to write about this for a long time.  I looked in my search history and discovered that I did research for this two weeks ago, and I knew I had suspicions about it before that.

Anyway, it's the G7 that's underneath the "careful" in "I Want Her She Wants Me" - "she told me to be careful if I loved her."

G7 sounds kind of weird.  In doing research, I discovered that it sounds weird because of the dissonance between the G and the F.  And that dissonance is important to the line - it's as if that G7 is a misstep despite the telling to "be careful."  It works well with the key change that also takes place during that line, which I've written about before.  It seems that both that dissonant G7 and that key change portent ill.  But only for that section of the song - "She told me to be careful if I loved her / 'Cause she had given her heart once before."  So maybe it's taking on the tonal characteristics of the mood in which those lines were said.

I keep comparing "I Want Her She Wants Me" with "Care of Cell 44," which has some of the same ill-portending elements, but which seems different in some way.

Saturday Club

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I totally forgot to include the BBC broadcasts in my posts about "fifty years ago to-day in Zombie history."

According to the liner notes for Zombie Heaven, the Zombies were on Saturday Club fifty years ago to-day (6 February 1965) although it was recorded on 26 January and 2 February.  The liner notes mention that the show wasn't broadcast on the 30th because of Winston Churchill's funeral (the procession of which inspired the rhythm in Chris White's "Remember You"), so the songs recorded on the 26th were added to those recorded on the 2nd.

In any case, they played "Tell Her No," "What More Can I Do," "I'm Going Home," "For You My Love," "Tell Her No" (acoustic piano version), and "Soulville" - tracks 5-10 on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven.

"Leave Me Be"

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It occurred to me that I hadn't done a version of "Leave Me Be" since learning the bass and organ parts (or some of the organ part), so I did this last night.  It didn't turn out as well as I wanted (I tried doing a video, but I had a lot of problems), but it's much better than the last version I did.