"She's Coming Home"

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This week, I have the chords for "She's Coming Home" (in writing them out, I discovered that I'd actually been missing the guitar part at the end of the bridge).  There are some specific rhythms for these, so it's probably the most difficult chord progression I've posted so far, but the chords themselves are pretty easy.

The bass part for this is really easy (for almost the entirety of the verses, it's just E notes), so I might try notating that (along with the organ part, which is also pretty easy) and then add the guitar chords above the staff.  That would be easier to understand than just a list of chords, but it'll be awhile before I get to that, so....

The guitar comes in fairly late in the first verse.  There's an initial B major at the end of the second line ("I thought my love for her had gone away") and then:

|: E major / A major :|
E major / G# minor / C# minor / B major

Choruses:

A major / C major / E major / E dominant 7 / E major
A major / C major / E major / C major
E major / C major
A major / B major / Bb major / A major
E major / A major / E major

Bridge:

C# minor / F# major / A major / B major
B major / A major / F# major / E major

There are four measures of rests in the guitar part before going back to:

|: E major / A major :|
E major / G# minor / C# minor / B major

The rhythm for the repeated |: E major / A major :| section is a lot less intensive than in the first verse.  There's only one strum per measure.

The last chorus has a slightly different ending:

A major / C major / E major / E dominant 7 / E major
A major / C major / E major / C major
E major / C major
A major / B major / Bb major / A major
|: E major / A major :| E major

Nexus and Journey

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I'm trying to make a calendrical spreadsheet of all of the songs and albums included in this project (it's occurred to me that it's impractical to continue recording every song on the anniversary of its original recording or release [eventually it'd get to a point where I'm recording something almost everyday, which I don't have the time for], so I'm trying to find a better way to cover everything), and I discovered that Argent and Colin Blunstone released albums on sequential days in 1974.  Argent's Nexus came out on 22 February, and Blunstone's Journey came out on 23 February.

"Summertime"

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Before I even queued the post with the chords for "Summertime," I started writing out the bass part in notation.  In doing so, I realized that I've been playing the E and B notes in the wrong octave for something like three years.  I fixed that in the notation I'm writing out (which I'll post at some point), and I would record a new version, but the anniversary of the original recording is in about three weeks (12 June), so I'll just wait for that.

"Summertime"

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Here are the chords for "Summertime."

There's the introductory electric piano part, and then the bass has a section almost all to itself (there's a bit of sustain from the electric piano part) before the guitar and drums come in.  For that part, there's an introductory A minor / E major / B minor / E major before the verse properly starts (although the vocals start on that last E major).

Verses:

|: A minor / E major / B minor / E major :|

D minor / F major / E major

|: A minor / E major / B minor / E major :|

C major / A minor / F major

A minor / E major / B minor / E major

During the electric piano solo:

A minor / D minor / A minor

C major / A minor / F major

A minor / E major / B minor / E major

After the final verse, there's another section of A minor / E major / B minor / E major before resolving on A minor.

"Follow"

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Yester-day I listened to Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me.  The guitar solo in "Follow" sounded pretty easy, so I tried figuring it out.  It's more difficult than I thought, but I think I have it.  There aren't strummed chords in the song, but I'm pretty close to having figured out the chords for it too.

Update

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I haven't been very good at posting notation (in any form), but a couple weeks ago, I wrote out a list of songs that have guitar parts that are only chords.  I'm going to try to write out one of those a week (posted on Sundays).  That should last about two months.  Maybe by then I will have written out some more notation.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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Over a week ago, I said I would post the guitar chords for "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" in "a couple days," so this is long overdue.  I'm not writing it out in full (the |: :| signs indicate a repeated section), but it should be pretty easy to figure out the changes.

Verses:

|: C minor / F major :| - both are played higher up the neck, with the 8th fret barred

|: Bb major / Ab major :|

G major



Choruses:

|: C major / A minor / C major / E major

C# minor / E major / C# minor / B major :|

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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Apparently, this is only the second time I've recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" too.  I haven't learned any more of this, but I corrected a few errors.  I'd thought that a section of the bass part was just a scale (which I erroneously claimed was a "chromatic" descent when I last recorded this, before I knew what "chromatic" really means), but it doesn't complete the scale.  Instead of going to C and repeating, it goes to G and then starts over with C.  It's the kind of thing that notation would explain better than text does, and it doesn't help that this song has sections in multiple keys (C minor, C major, and E major, I think).

I also had the rhythm wrong with a section of the guitar chords.  I don't usually pay as much attention to strumming rhythm as I probably should, but this was something easy to fix.  I'd been continuously strumming throughout the second half of the verses ("I talk to you as though you can hear what I say…"), but it's actually two strums per chord in that third line and three per chord for the first half of the fourth.

I added some arpeggios to the organ chords in that same section (where the chord progression alternates between Bb major and Ab major).  I'm not sure that's strictly accurate, but the organ part is more than just straight chords, and doing it this way makes my recording a bit more interesting to listen to.

The guitar part for this is just chords (which I'm pretty confident I've figured out correctly), so I plan to post them in a couple days.

"Indication"

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For the last couple days, I've been working on the guitar part in "Indication."  Previously, I knew only the five-note phrase at the end, but I've made a lot of progress.  I'm pretty sure on the chords, but the second half of the introductory phrase feels off.  I think it's entirely double- or triple-stops, but I can't figure them all out, so I have a couple single notes.

I also made a bit of progress in the opening organ part; I have the bass register now.

"She Does Everything for Me"

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I've gotten into the habit of playing the backing vocal part from the chorus in the bass register of the electric piano part (the "And now I know" is prominent), which I don't think is particularly accurate, but which makes this more interesting to listen to.

I'm not sure that my tambourine part is exactly accurate, although the tambourine's dropping out for the third chorus is correct.  I don't know why it's that way on the original recording.  A couple times when I was playing it, I forgot that the chorus repeats there, so maybe whoever played tambourine forgot too and then they just didn't go back to fix it.

"I'll Call You Mine"

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Because I learned the bass part for it about a month ago, I decided to start with "I'll Call You Mine" from the four songs the Zombies recorded fifty years ago to-day.  I attempted the vocals too, which sort of buried the bass part, but whatever.  I was surprised to find that this is only the second time I've recorded "I'll Call You Mine" for this project.  The last time was in 2013.

I'm sure I don't have Rod's harmony part right, and I think there's an-other vocal part I'm missing during the "I'll call you mine"s during the choruses (so I just doubled the one I knew).  The piano part is just a pale representation of what it should be too.

Still, I thought this turned out fairly well, considering my voice isn't as good as any of theirs.

Recording Session

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According to The Decca Stereo Anthology liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (4 May 1966), the Zombies recorded "Indication," "I'll Call You Mine," "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," and "She Does Everything for Me."

Unlike the previous Zombies sessions (all held at Studio No. 2 at Decca West Hampstead), these were recorded as Lansdowne Studio.

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

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When I was learning the bass part for the demo version of "Summertime" last week, I started paying attention to the backing vocals.  The backing vocals in the demo version are actually more complex than those in the final studio version, but I found something interesting that's present in both.

I figured out and notated (I think correctly) the backing vocals for the studio version:

It occurs to me that "backing vocals, second verse" is sort of superfluous because there aren't any backing vocals for the first verse.  You might be able to see a bunch of eraser marks because the higher range of treble clef still gives me difficulties in notation; I had to re-do all of this because I did it wrong the first time.

What caught my attention here is the melody in the first four bars (the repeated E F# G# F#).  This sounded familiar because a very similar melody is in the backing vocals for "I Want Her She Wants Me":

Again, the "backing vocals, second verse" is superfluous because the first verse has no backing vocals (which is a similarity in itself).  Also, I'm not certain of the quarter rest or bottom harmony here; I might be misconstruing the harmony with the bass part.

Starting in the third measure, there's the phrase E F# G F#.  They're half notes where the phrase in "Summertime" is whole notes, but that and a half step (G instead of G#) are the only differences, even though "Summertime" is in A minor and "I Want Her She Wants Me" is in G major.

The more I got thinking about this, the more I started to convince myself that "Summertime" was floating around Rod Argent's head as he wrote this (even if it was just a subconscious influence).  I found some (admittedly slight) lyrical similarities too.  The first line of "Summertime" is "It's summertime, and the livin' is easy," and "I Want Her She Wants Me" has some similar lines in "I sleep so easy" and "And life seems kind now."

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, "I Want Her She Wants Me" was "written and demo'ed by the band almost a year prior [to its recording] in September 1966."  Rod Argent was certainly thinking about "Summertime" when he was writing "Time of the Season," since he's admitted in interviews that "Who's your daddy? / Is he rich like me?" is a nod to "Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good-lookin'" in "Summertime," but "Time of the Season" seems to be one of the last songs written for Odessey and Oracle, with some accounts of Argent still working on it the morning before it was recorded, so I'm not sure how convincing that is as evidence.

"Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

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For my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to The Essential Elvis Presley.  In the spoken part in "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," there's a reference to Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" from As You Like It:  "You know, someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part."

This reminded me that there are references to that same line in "A Moment in Time" from the Zombies' Breathe Out, Breathe In and "Circus" from Argent's Circus.

"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is from 1960, so it's after the Elvis period that Rod Argent really likes (he said that in the first three years, Elvis' voice was "transcendent").  (I think one of the Beatles said that after Elvis was in the army, his music wasn't as good, which seems to be the same position that Argent takes.)  It's unlikely then that this Shakespeare reference inspired the same Shakespeare reference in these Argent-related songs, but I still think it's interesting that - despite how "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is after that revered Elvis period - it has that same reference in common.