"Summertime"

I recently listened to Gershwin's Porgy & Bess performed by the Bethlehem Orchestra.  In that version of "Summertime," "wings" in the line "Then you're gonna spread your wings and take to the sky" is sung with a melisma, lending a sense of this "spread[ing]."  While this articulation isn't present in the Zombies' version, I realized that there's an-other musical feature that provides a similar effect:  after "spread your wings," the bass plays a group of notes that span a sixth (A D E F).

"Christmas for the Free"

A couple months ago, I listened to Argent's In Deep (on vinyl, even).  Recently, I finally got around to researching something I noticed about "Christmas for the Free" (which is also true of the version the Zombies recorded for Breathe Out, Breathe In).

I noted before that the lines "Blunt is the pain of hunger / Cold is the wind of grief" are inverted so that the predicate adjectives precede their subjects and consequently receive some emphasis.  When I listened to the song again recently, I realized that the particular sonic qualities of blunt and cold carry a sort of inherent emphasis of their own.  If I understand the phonetics correctly, the initial sound of each word is a plosive (labial and velar, respectively).  This force at the beginning of the words combines with their unusual placement in the syntax and results in an even stronger accentuation.

"You Could Be My Love"

Yester-day was the anniversary of the Zombies concert at Abbey Road Studios in 2021, so I watched the DVD again.  I noticed some significance in the articulation of a line in "You Could Be My Love" (which is also present in the version on Different Game).  "Can't begin to think without you" in the chorus is sung with some gaps in between the words, not exactly staccato but definitely not completely legato either.  These interruptions demonstrate the difficulty that the narrator would experience in stringing together a coherent thought without his love.

"A Sign from Me to You"

"A Sign from Me to You" exhibits the opposite sort of feature as "Exclusively for Me."  There's incessant guitar strumming throughout the song, and this constancy matches the "always" and maybe even the "many, many" in the first verse:

You say all you wanted was a sign, my love

Something to show that I am always with you

I could give you many, many signs, my love

But I'm afraid that I may just confuse you

"Exclusively for Me"

I listened to Ennismore yester-day and noticed a couple instances where musical elements match the lyrics.

The arrangement at the beginning of "Exclusively for Me" is fairly sparse (just a vocal, electric piano, and bass), and in a way, this small number of parts musically represents the exclusivity in the title phrase and the void of the "lonely, empty room."

In reviewing the lyrics, I also noticed that the contrast in the line "The winter's night gives way to a warm summer's day" is emphasized by the duality of opposite elements:  winter to summer and night to day.