Miscellaneous Observations

A couple days ago, I watched a video of the Zombies performing "This Old Heart of Mine" live in France in 1966.  Rod is glimpsed only briefly in the video, but I noticed that the shirt he's wearing seems to be the same one he's wearing on the cover of the I Love You album.  There's a slightly better view of him in the video for "Goin' to a Go Go" from the same appearance:

Here's the cover of I Love You:

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Chris White says, "We did the Emperor Rosko TV show, 'Dents De Lait Dents De Loups,' in Paris, with Sylvie Vartan and Marianne Faithfull," and the chronology explains that the Zombies were in Paris on 29 and 30 October 1966.  A number of years ago, I did some research (detailed here) and determined that the picture on the cover of I Love You was taken sometime between 5 and 20 November 1966 in Sweden.  (About seven months after I wrote that post, I found this video in which Rod and Colin mention that the picture was taken in Sweden.)  So the videos in the links above and the I Love You album cover are only a few weeks apart at the most.

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Yester-day, I listened to Colin's Journey album because it was the fiftieth anniversary of its U.K. release, and I realized that the title may be a nod to Odessey and Oracle since journey and odyssey are synonyms.

Journey

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (23 February 1974), Colin Blunstone's Journey (Epic S EPC 65805) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. release (Epic KE 32962) was on 26 August.

Also released on 23 February 1974 was the single "Weak for You" (edited) b/w "Keep the Curtains Closed Today" (Dut. Epic EPC 2132), apparently a Dutch only release.

Nexus

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (22 February 1974), Argent's Nexus (Epic S EPC 65924) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. release (Epic KE 32573) was on 22 April.

Also released on 22 February 1974 was the single "Thunder and Lightning" (edited) b/w "Keeper of the Flame" (Epic S EPC 2147).

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

I was thinking about "I Want Her She Wants Me" last week, and I realized that one section of the bass part at the beginning of the song is similar to a section of the bass part in "Summertime."

Notating the bass part in the introduction to "I Want Her She Wants Me" is still beyond me, but the first few phrases fit nicely in 3/4 (the majority of the song is in 4/4, though):

where the first G in each measure is a hammer-on.

In "Summertime," there are some very similar phrases, first occurring at ~0:23, under the "high" of "and the cotton is high":

where the first E in each measure is a hammer-on.

The interval between the two pitches in "I Want Her She Wants Me" is a half-step, and the interval between the two pitches in "Summertime" is a whole step, but otherwise, these figures are the same.  In both songs, the figure also occurs three times in succession.

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This similarity between the bass parts reminded me of a similarity between the backing vocals that I noted years ago.  I revisited the parts and improved my accuracy, but I'm still not sure I have everything note-perfect.

The backing vocal in "Summertime" is something like:

It's a bit different the second time.  Instead of just E F# in the last line, the E F# G# F# figure is repeated.

The backing vocals in "I Want Her She Wants Me" are something like:

Common to both is the sequence E F# G(#) F# in fairly even note values.

"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" a couple days ago, and I realized that it has some similarity with the Everly Brothers' "Take a Message to Mary."  Both songs are about someone in prison and a letter or message either to or from that person ("Writing this letter hoping you're OK" in "Care of Cell 44" and the recurring title phrase in "Take a Message to Mary").

While the Everly Brothers did have some influence on the Zombies, I think this similarity is probably a coincidence.  In this interview (starting at ~32:37), Rod Argent talks about how he wrote the song, specifically how it changed as he was writing it:  "I just started out one day with the phrase, and I thought, you know, I started writing a love song really:  'Good morning to you; I hope you're feeling better, baby / Thinking of me while you are far away,' and then I thought, 'Well, why is she far away?' and then I thought, 'Well, let's not do the normal cliché; let's imagine a situation, you know, that's got some, uh, a little bit of bite to it,' and then I just imagined this thing...."  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, he comments, "There was no inspiration behind it really."  If the Everly Brothers' song was an influence, it seems like it was only a subconscious one.  Still, I thought I'd note it.