When I listened to All Together Now this morning, I thought "Keep on Rollin'" sounded like it was doing the same sort of major/major 6th thing that's fairly common in 1950s rock and roll songs (Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only one I can name off the top of my head that does this). I just tried that out, and I was right, but I also discovered that the All Together Now version is in a different key compared to the version on Odessey and Oracle {Revisited}. Provided the first chord (which is all I've figured out so far) is the tonic, the All Together Now version is in C# major and the O&O {Revisited} version is in D major.
In some recent interviews, Argent and Blunstone have mentioned that they still perform the songs in the original keys, so that key change in "Keep on Rollin'" is interesting because 1) there's a key change at all, and 2) it's a key change to a higher key, and in those interviews, it's been a question about lowering the keys because of old age voice changes.
I listened to Argent's All Together Now this morning (I might have an-other post about it later, but mostly it would just be "Oh, this is double-tracked!" or "Oh, that part's overdubbed!"). Anyway, "Hold Your Head Up" reminded me of that 5th, 7th, octave bass figure that's in "Tell Her No," "Whenever You're Ready," and "Time of the Season." Because "Hold Your Head Up" was written after Argent's improvised "Time of the Season," I wanted to check to see how much of the bass part it retained. So I finally got around to doing that this evening.
I'd always thought that "Hold Your Head Up" was in D major, but if the bass part holds to that 5th, 7th, octave phrase, it's in D minor. (It's A, C, D.) So I'm unsure of the key, but it seems like the bass part does retain that tonality (just transposed down from "Time of the Season"'s E minor). The rhythm is different though.
I also figured out a bit of the guitar part because I thought it would be boring to have just the bass part. Way back in October 2011 (which is - I think - when I was first really getting into Argent), I'd thought I'd figured it out (I still have an erroneous tab that I wrote in a notebook for a literature class I was in at the time; it's right under my notes on the Bhagavad-Gita), but then I realized that I was just playing note pairs an octave apart and that the actual part was more involved. I think I have it now, although my guitar tone doesn't match the original very well.
For the last half a year or something, I've been playing around with a harpsichord arrangement of "Beechwood Park." There are some trills in the original guitar part that sound vaguely baroque, and the harpsichord was a baroque instrument, so playing the song on one sort of helps to bring out those influences. Also I just wanted to record this because I was one song away from having recorded 200 this year.
I have a bad habit of unintentionally quickening the pace, and I might have hit a bad note, but there you go.
I listened to Into the Afterlife to-day and noticed some things:
"She's Not There" - Neil MacArthur
For the first two sections, there's an acoustic guitar panned right and an electric guitar panned left. But after the string glissando and tremolo, (at about 2:12) they've flipped channels. The acoustic is now panned left, and the electric is panned right. I've had this album for something like seven years and only just now noticed that.
"Twelve Twenty Nine" - Neil MacArthur
I'd a bit unsure of the "I died" (although I suppose it's an appropriate phrase for a former Zombie), but I think the first two lines of the second verse are:
I died as I kissed the last tear I kissed from her face And through the blur of my own I hurried away from that place
That "face"/"place" rhyme is also present in the Zombies' "Remember You":
I remember your face When I think of this place
There's something like five years between the two songs, and it's almost certainly a coincidence, but I still thought it interesting. For the record, "Remember You" is a Chris White song, and "Twelve Twenty Nine" was written by Peter Lee Stirling and Chris Sedgewick according to the Into the Afterlife liner notes.
"I Could Spend the Day" - Rod Argent/Chris White
I'm pretty sure I've noticed this before, but I don't think I've written about it. The "fall" in "Words you want to hear / Would fall" has a melisma with the later syllables at lower pitches than the earlier ones so that the word itself sounds like it's falling.
"Ma non è giusto" - Neil MacArthur
I'd either started or completed transcriptions of all of the Into the Afterlife songs with the exception of this one, an Italian version of Neil MacArthur's "She's Not There." I figured I'd finally give it a go, since I've been learning Italian since last summer. I didn't get very far, but one of the phrases I was able to pick out is "Io vedo lei" ("I see her"). That's not in Argent's original lyrics, so I'm wondering what else I'll find if I get better at my Italian.
Last night, I spent some time figuring out the bass part for "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me." I got further than I expected but not as far as I would have liked, if that makes sense. I figured out the bass part for "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (although I think I missed a note), but not "Bring It on Home to Me." And I still haven't really figured out the guitar part beyond just the chords and a phrase or two.
I discovered a couple things specific to the Zombies' version. Unlike the Miracles' original (and the Beatles' cover), they don't start with the introductory phrase; they go right into the first verse. To some degree, because of that in medias res beginning, they can put in the same falling fifth (E to A) that starts "She's Not There," "I Love You," and Argent's "Free Fall."
I haven't made much progress on this one. I did figure out a bit of the bass register of the piano part though. I think the proper bass part follows that during the "verses," but it's different during the middle section.
I was just thinking about the bass part for "I Can't Make up My Mind" and wondering how it would look if notated (I've been getting better at notation and more interested in notation simultaneously; I think they're related). Anyway, I thought the part during the verses would be two eighth notes and then two dotted quarter notes, so I tried this with my MIDI software, and it worked.
The two eighth notes and two dotted quarter notes looked familiar to me, and I realized that this is the same rhythm that's in the bass parts for "Tell Her No," "Whenever You're Ready," and "Time of the Season." There are differences though: this isn't the 5th, 7th, octave phrase, and this doesn't start with an upbeat like those do:
The rhythm itself is the same but - because it's moved over so that it starts on the downbeat and includes different notes - it doesn't really sound the same.
I should note that "I Can't Make up My Mind" is a Chris White song, but those other three ("Tell Her No," "Whenever You’re Ready," and "Time of the Season") are Rod Argent songs.
This is pretty much the same as what I recorded back in September. The beginning is a bit rough though.
Also, I misremembered how I had to correct the instrumentation. Back in September, I used electric piano and then realized that I should have used organ, but before I recorded this, I thought, "Right, so I have to use electric piano instead of organ," which is the opposite of what I should have done.
Last night, I learned most of the bass part for "I Got My Mojo Working." It's pretty much just the same thing repeated, but it changes for the harmonica and guitar solos (so in some ways it's a precedent for later Zombies songs where the bass part changes for the solo). I haven't figured those parts out yet, so this is just the introduction and first two verses' worth.
Because I learned the bass part for "Tell Her No" last week and the bass part for this last night, I now know at least part of a part for every song that the Zombies released on Decca. Those were the only two songs I didn't know any parts of (although I've known for a couple years that "I Got My Mojo Working" is a three-chord song in C).
This one has sort of fallen through the cracks. I haven't recorded it for over two years.
Apparently, I learned the bass part in April 2013, and I remember learning the chords in late 2013/early 2014 (that's when I got my twelve-string guitar, so I figured I'd better learn a song that actually uses a twelve-string guitar). I guess it was in the months after that when I figured out the actual guitar part (it's not just plain chords). But I'd never recorded the parts together.
I was having some problems re-learning and then remembering the bass part for this, so yester-day, I notated the whole thing. In doing so, I discovered that this - like "Summertime" - is in 6/8.
Fifty-one years ago to-day was the third session for Begin Here, so I have a bunch of songs to record again.
I'm starting with "The Way I Feel Inside" because it's short and I have a lot to do to-day. I've been playing this a lot, but where my right hand does the melody, so I haven't been able to practice that extra phrase. I'm not sure it's any more accurate than the last time I recorded, but I also don't think it's less accurate.
I discovered that I had the bass part at the very end wrong. I thought it went down to that Bb in the Edim chord, but it stays at E, just like in the rehearsal version.
An-other thing I was thinking about this morning was the rhythm during the verses of "Changes." I figured out (correctly!) how to notate it (in my head, even), and I discovered that each measure has the same rhythm:
I notated the bass register of the piano part, and I assumed that the vocal melody was the same, just higher. But then I verified it, and I discovered that I was wrong. For the first verse ("Now see her walk by...") it is the same (a half note, two eighth notes, and then a quarter note), but it changes (like the title) when it gets to the second verse ("Now silver and gold..."). The piano part remains the same, but for the last two lines ("Like emerald stones / And platinum glass"), that half note becomes a dotted quarter note and an eighth note:
Before I noticed that difference, I thought something was at odds since the song - as the title would suggest - is about changes (the seasons are mentioned in a cycle, and there's the line "Nothing will last"), yet the rhythm was invariable. But then I discovered that variation in the second verse, and it makes more sense. The rhythm of the piano part and the vocal are the same until the lines after "Nothing will last." It's almost a signal for them to change.
I should note that the key continues to befuddle me, but these sections don't have any accidentals, and there's a high A in the upper register of the piano part, so I'm assuming it's in A minor.
This morning, I was thinking about "Caroline Goodbye," specifically the first line: "Saw your picture in the paper." It has a certain similarity to the beginning of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" ("I read the news today... I saw the photograph"). According to Wikipedia, the Caroline in the song is an actual person, so I'm not sure if that similarity is an intentional reference. It could have just been an actual thing that happened. I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Also, in writing down a note about this so I would remember to post it here later, I almost mis-typed "Caroline Goodbye" as "Caroline, No," the last track from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. I've actually mixed them up a few times because the titles are rather similar. But then I started wondering if that's intentional. I vaguely remember something about Tony Asher's mishearing "Carol, I Know" and coming up with "Caroline, No," which he and Brian Wilson liked because it was an odd-sounding phrase. "Caroline Goodbye" has that same sort of weird inversion. I think most people would just say, "Goodbye, Caroline." And in interviews that bring up Pet Sounds’ influence on Odessey and Oracle, Blunstone has said he's a fan of the Beach Boys, so he'd probably be familiar with the song.
I was surprised to find that this is only the second time I've recorded "Walking in the Sun." I've had a note on my desktop for about a year to get around to recording it again because a month or so after I first recorded it, I realized how the guitar part actually goes. I'd been playing only one of a pair of notes and in the wrong octave. As I remember, I had trouble recording it the correct way, but sometimes between now and then, I figured out that if I angle my pick (which apparently you're supposed to do), it's not as piercing of a sound, which is what I'd been having problems with.
I went back and referenced my old recording for the bass part during the "You will laugh and walk with me" sections, but I'm still not sure if I have the rhythm right there.
I didn't remember that I'd included electric piano in my first recording, so, really, the only new part about that is that it doubles the bass part during the first half of the verses. As with most of the keyboard parts, what I have is extremely simplified. I'm pretty sure I have the right chords, but Argent elaborates them in way that's still mystifying to me.
Because I know the bass part for the final version of "The Way I Feel Inside," it wasn't too difficult to figure out the part in the rehearsal version. I played the electric piano part more-or-less the same as the organ part on the final version, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.
Now that I have the bass and electric piano parts, I don't think the guitar part is right. There are some dissonances in my version that don't seem to be in the original, so I think I may have over-simplified it. I haven't changed the way I play it in the two years since I learned it, so it's certainly possible that I have it wrong.
Originally, of the songs that were recorded at that session on 25 November, I was saving "Tell Her No" for last because I didn't know any of it (I think I knew the guitar phrase a few years ago, but I've forgotten it) and saving it until the end gave me more time to try to learn something. But last night, I figured out the bass part, and it's really exciting, so I pushed it up to to-day.
Last month, I talked about a phrase based on the 5th, 7th, and octave scale degrees that's in both "Whenever You're Ready" and "Time of the Season." It's in "Tell Her No" too! It's at the beginning of each line in the verses.
"Tell Her No" is in E major, so the intervals in "Whenever You're Ready" (in G major) are the same, just lowered a sixth. "Time of the Season" is in E minor, so two of the three notes (B and E) are the same ("Tell Her No" has D# where "Time of the Season" has D natural).
The Zombie Heaven liner notes (and I think a few other things I've read too) say that "Whenever You're Ready" was a strong contender for a hit song, so it's interesting that it shares that 5th-7th-octave phrase with two songs that were hits.
Now that I know this, I think I'm going to be bothered by interviews and articles and such where people say, "Oh, 'She's Not There' and 'Time of the Season' have the same kind of rhythm." I mean, sure, maybe, but that section of "Tell Her No" and "Time of the Season" share the exact rhythm, and they have a very close tonality.
Additionally, the bass part for "Tell Her No" has two three-note chromatic phrases, and they're the same ones that are in the bass part for the rehearsal version of "The Way I Feel Inside" (which I also learned last night). Both songs were recorded at the same session, too. The phrases are B, C, C# and A, A#, B. However, they're both ascending in "Tell Her No," where in "The Way I Feel Inside," that A, A#, B phrase is descending, so it's more like B, A#, A.
This morning, I was thinking about the harmonica part in "Work 'n' Play," specifically how one part of it is doubled on twelve-string guitar. And I realized that the Beatles did this same thing on "Please Please Me." That's six-string where "Work 'n' Play" is twelve-string, but still, it's a harmonica part doubled on guitar (or guitar part doubled on harmonica, whichever).
Because "Work 'n' Play" was written by Ken Jones though, I don't know if that's the Beatles' influence on Jones or on the Zombies. That is, whether Jones wrote that part with joint harmonica and guitar or whether the Zombies arranged it like that based on what Jones gave them. Of course, it could just be a coincidence that it's similar to "Please Please Me," but I don't know of any other song that doubled harmonica and guitar.
