[link to original on tumblr]
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After I wrote about "Smokey Day" recently, I figured out some more of it. At first, it was just the introductory flute phrase, but then I got the rest of the guitar part (it turns out I already had the difficult part with the 6th chord and the weird E7; the part I was missing was much easier). Like last time, I got a blister from playing this, but it took only two takes this time, rather than seventeen (it's not perfect though).
Before I recorded this, I got thinking about the bass part and realized it sounded pretty easy. As it turns out, it's only, like, five notes. That should have been pretty obvious, because it was after listening to Colin Blunstone's version and noticing the simplicity of that bass part that I figured out the first section of the guitar part in the Zombies' version (although it was recorded with Argent personnel, plus Mike Vickers).
My recording ends just before the line "Hear the call of plaintive voices" because at that point, the rest of the instruments stop, and it's just harpsichord for eight measures. And I still can't understand what the line after that is. It picks up after that section with the same parts, but it resolves to Bb major, which is weird since the rest of the song is in either F major or A minor (I haven't figured out enough to be certain).
Since I figured out a flute part for this, it seems relevant to say that I'm about halfway to having enough money to buy one. I could actually buy one now, but I'd like to have some money left in my bank account, so I'm doing the fiscally responsible thing and waiting until I have twice as much as it costs before buying it. I'm hoping that the price will go down a bit after Christmas (when I'll probably reject responsibility and buy one anyway). That's what happened with my twelve-string guitar. On Christmas Day 2012, the price dropped something like 30%, and that's how I got my Burns Double-Six, which is the same guitar Paul Atkinson had.
