[link to original on tumblr]
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I'm listening to the Zombies' Breathe Out, Breathe In. I remember reading something (I think it was around the time the album came out) that compared the piano riff in "Play It for Real" to that in the Beatles' "Hey Bulldog." I'd sort of dismissed this as, "Yeah, they sort of sound alike," thinking that the big similarity was just that they were both piano riffs. Listening to it this time, that similarity was very obvious tonally (probably because I learnt how to play the riff from "Hey Bulldog" back in November and haven't listened to Breathe Out, Breathe In since last May).
Because I already knew the riff from "Hey Bulldog," I learnt the riff from "Play It for Real" in order to compare them, and I was surprised by how similar they are musically. The riff in "Hey Bulldog" is in B minor where the riff in "Play It for Real" is in A major, but - as far as scale degrees - the riffs are exactly the same (up to a point at least; the riff in "Play It for Real" is longer and more developed than that in "Hey Bulldog"). I tried notating them, but they're beyond my notational skills, so I'll just have to describe them.
Both riffs start with two tonic notes (B B in "Hey Bulldog;" A A in "Play It for Real"). Then there's the third note of the scale (a D in B minor [a minor third] for "Hey Bulldog;" a C# in A major [a major third] for "Play It for Real") before going back to the tonic. That third starts a skipping between sequentially higher notes and the tonic, and that skipping figure is capped with an ascending half-step from augmented fourth to a perfect fifth. So - in full - it's B B D B E B E# F# in "Hey Bulldog," and - as far as it matches "Hey Bulldog" - A A C# A D D# E in "Play It for Real."
The rhythms start to differ near the end of that first phrase, but tonally, they're very similar. The only differences are the key each is in and that one has a minor third where the other has a major third.
Rod Argent (the Zombies' keyboard player) has talked about the Beatles' influence in some interviews, so I think this is a likely instance of influence even if it was a conscious influence.I'm queuing this, so it won't show up until 2 March, and by then I'll be busy recording some songs for the historical anniversaries, but after that I'll get around to recording and posting the riff from "Play It for Real."
