"Since I've Been Loving You"

Back in January I figured out the chords for Colin Blunstone's "Since I've Been Loving You."  I intended to post them the next day, but that was the day that Jim Rodford died, which sort of upset everything.  Recently, though, I remembered that I meant to post them, so here they are:

Verses
Ab major | Eb major | F minor | Db major
Ab major | Bb minor | Eb major
Ab major | Eb major | F minor | Db major
Ab major | Eb major | Gb major | Ab major

Choruses

Ab major | Bb minor | C minor

Db major | Eb major | Ab major | F minor

Ab major | Bb minor | Eb major

Ab major | Bb minor | C minor

Db major | Eb major | Ab major | F minor

Ab major | Eb major | Gb major | Ab major

The two lines of Ab major | Bb minor | C minor in the chorus last only about half a measure; the changes there are really fast.

Split Announced

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (30 March 1968), the Zombies' split was announced.  In the liner notes to the 30th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, there's a clipping (with the same date) from Disc and Music Echo.  In full it reads:

ZOMBIES, who sprang to fame with the hit "She's Not There," three years ago, have disbanded.
     Says leader Rod Argent.  "We felt we were becoming stale.  We didn't think we were progressing musically as a group."
     But the St Albans boys leave behind two new releases.  A single, "Time Of The Season," released on April 5, and an album "Odyssey And Oracle," on April 19.
     Adds Argent: "We are ending our career with recordings we wrote and produced ourselves for the CBS label.  We have made up our minds not to re-form even if the records are big hits."
     Zombies were most successful in America where "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No" won them top awards.  The boys also appeared and played in Otto Preminger's film "Bunny Lake Is Missing."
     Zombies Rod Argent and Chris White plan to stay in the business, songwriting and producing.  Lead singer Colin Blunstone is going into insurance.  Drummer Hugh Grundy intends to stay in music.  And guitarist Paul Atkinson has taken a post in computers.

"Twelve Twenty Nine"

A couple days ago (26 March), I happened to look at a clock when it was 12:29 (a.m.).  The Neil MacArthur song ("Twelve Twenty Nine") popped into my head, and I realized something about the last line of each verse ("'Cause at twelve twenty nine today's taken my only love away").  The "away" is sung with a melisma (B B A G#), which musically provides a sense of movement, namely "today's tak[ing] my only love away."

In figuring out a bit of the vocal melody while writing this post last night, I also discovered that there's an accidental for "taken."  The song is in E major, but that "taken" is sung to a C natural.  That foreign tonality intensifies "taken... away" into something like "wrenched away."

Argent Live at the Paris Theatre, London 1972

Via the Zombies fan club on Facebook, here's a recording of an Argent concert from 1972.  The accompanying text claims that the set list includes "God Gave Rock and Roll to You," but the recording actually consists of "Be My Lover, Be My Friend," "Sweet Mary," "Hold Your Head Up," and "He's a Dynamo."  Except for "Hold Your Head Up," I'd never heard live versions of any of those.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

Recently, I finally got around to notating the synth/mellotron quotation of "Dies Irae" at the beginning of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek."  I've known the guitar quotation for years, but this keyboard quotation (which I learned in August) is at a lower pitch.  After I notated it, I lookt at my old posts about "The Coming of Kohoutek," and I discovered that I haven't written much about the "Dies Irae" quotation, so I'm doing that now.

I identified the quotation myself (after hearing a similar phrase in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and doing some research), but I also found this interview with Rod Argent where he talks about the song a bit and confirms the "Dies Irae" quote:

Progsheet: Argent's The Coming Of Kohoutek got lots of airplay on FM radio here in the States. Please give me some background on the song. 

Rod Argent: The comet was heralded as being potentially one of the most spectacular events to occur in the sky for many years. In the far past, spectacular comet visitations had been linked to all sorts of prophesies of doom and destruction, and I included a very famous musical theme - the Dies Irae, (Day of Wrath), written in the 13th century. It was a short theme that's been used by many composers. I just thought it was interesting to look at things a bit from a historical perspective, and it was the dramatic nature of the whole event that fascinated me. In the end, the comet Kohoutek was pretty much a damp squib!!

Here's the "Dies Irae" tune:

[source]

And here's the synth/mellotron quotation from the beginning of "The Coming of Kohoutek":

Argent uses only the first two thirds of the "Dies Irae" and changes the rhythm a bit (notwithstanding the overall lengthening of the note values), but the intervals remain the same.