"Friends of Mine"

Since 2014, I've recorded a version of Odessey and Oracle every year, but when I started doing it this year, I kept finding parts that I wasn't playing very accurately.  Rather than rush through it all and end up with a knowingly flawed version, I decided just to skip it altogether.

But, of course, because to-day's the 49th anniversary of the album's release, I listened to Odessey and Oracle (specifically, the 30th anniversary edition, which has both the stereo and mono versions of the album).  Because it sounded easy, I thought I'd figure out the vocal parts for the chant of couples in "Friends of Mine," and while writing out the notation, I discovered something interesting.

First, here's the notation:

I should note while the whole chant of couples lasts eight measures, the second four measures are musically identical to the first four.

What I noticed while writing this out is that each couple has its own complete measure.  For each couple (aside from Jean and Jim), there's a one-syllable name, "and," and a two-syllable name.  That's four syllables, one for each beat in a measure, so each couple is musically represented as complete unit.

"A Rose for Emily"

A couple days ago, I was thinking about the unused mellotron part for "A Rose for Emily" (I figured out half of it last week).  I'm not sure about the part for the third verse yet, but the part during the second verse is only five pitches:

I realized that these are the same five pitches that make up the entirety of the lead vocal melody for the chorus of "Maybe after He's Gone" ("Maybe after he's gone / She'll come back, love me again...")

Were that mellotron part used for the final version of "A Rose for Emily," it would have been yet an-other musical element that ties the songs on Odessey and Oracle together.

"Maybe after He's Gone"

A couple days ago, I realized something about the bridge of "Maybe after He's Gone," specifically the line "All the days and all the nights."  Colin Blunstone sings "All the days and" by himself (although I'm pretty sure his vocal is double-tracked), but then the backing vocals (I'm assuming it's both Rod Argent and Chris White) come in for "all the nights."  There's a bit of staccato for that phrase too, and both of those things musically emphasize the "all."  The additional voices sort of represent the multitude, and the insistence of that slight staccato is almost like a tally counting up the number of nights.

"A Rose for Emily"

Yester-day, I learned the unused mellotron part for the second verse of "A Rose for Emily" (it's a bonus track on the 30th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle).  I'd read about the song in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, which reminded me that at some point I was going to figure out that mellotron part.

Figuring out the mellotron part actually helpt in figuring out the one piano chord I was missing for this section.  For the most part, I learned the piano part from a vocal/guitar/piano book of Zombies songs from the Alfred Publishing Company.  They said it's a Ddim7, but this didn't sound right to me.  I knew the note in the bass register was a D, and this mellotron plays a G# on top of it, so while I'm still dubious about the 7th, I guess it really is a Ddim chord.

The mellotron part for the third verse is a little different, and I don't have that yet.  I think the first half is the same though.

"I Love You"

I've been reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images ever since I got it a few days ago.  It's been really interesting seeing the hand-written lyrics (not only for seeing what the Zombies' handwriting looks like but also because of the authority that these transcriptions have), and while looking at the lyrics of "I Love You," I discovered something really clever.

The verses end with the lines "But something holds me back / When I try to tell you."  Semantically, it could end there, but it also makes sense as an uninterrupted thought continuing into the chorus:  "But something holds me back / When I try to tell you // I love you, I love you..."

The song starts with the chorus, so initially those "I love you"s stand independently, but when the chorus follows a verse, they could also be the direct object of "tell" in "When I try to tell you."