The Influence of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog"

Last month, I got and started reading Robin Platts' Times and Seasons: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Zombies.  I decided to listen to what musical pieces are mentioned in the book (provided I have them), and the first album I listened to was Elvis 56, specifically for "Hound Dog," whose effect on a young Rod Argent is discussed at some length on the first two pages of the book.  (Incidentally:  I got Elvis 56 a number of years ago because Rod mentioned it specifically in this video from Amoeba Music).  I think I'd previously noticed that the bass part in "Hound Dog" has a dotted rhythm, but the particular context in which I'd listened to it this time made me realize that it may have influenced the rhythm that's present in a number of Zombie bass parts, which - as Rod briefly explains in the BBC Mastertapes program (at ~20:28 in the A-Side) - he often used to write for his own songs.

The bass part in "Hound Dog" varies a little bit from verse to verse, but it's something like this:

While the tonality is different, many bass parts in Zombies songs also have this sort of dotted rhythm.  For example, here's the bass part in the verses of "I'll Keep Trying":

(There are a couple measures in the chorus that I'm a bit unsure about, but otherwise, the entire bass part in "I'll Keep Trying" exhibits this initial pair of dotted quarter notes in each measure, save for the last bar.)

The bass part in the verses of "If It Don't Work Out" also has this rhythm for all but the last two measures, but since there are nine consecutive measures of nothing but D notes, I felt an excerpt of the notation wouldn't be very helpful in illustrating my point.

More often, however, there's a slight difference in the rhythm in that this single quarter note is replaced by a pair of eighth notes, which sometimes precedes the dotted quarter notes and acts as a pick-up.

For example, the beginning of "Whenever You're Ready":

The beginning of "Time of the Season":

And the verse in "Tell Her No":

(These parts may show the influence of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" more than Elvis's "Hound Dog," though.  As I pointed out before, albeit imperfectly, so I won't link to it, these bass parts share the same rhythm and the same tonality as "Stand by Me":  root, fifth, and seventh.)

December 1968 Overdubs

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago this month, the Zombies recorded additional parts for songs they originally recorded between 1964 and 1966: "If It Don't Work Out," "Don't Cry for Me," "I Know She Will," "Walking in the Sun," "I'll Keep Trying," and "I'll Call You Mine."  These were all done at Morgan Studios, Willesden.

"If It Don't Work Out"

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Last week, I was thinking about the rhythms in the bass parts of some Zombies' songs (ones written by Rod Argent, specifically).  I plan to write a lengthy post about them, but for now, here's the notation for the bass part in "If It Don't Work Out," which is one of the songs I was looking into:

Saturday Club

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Verulam Cover Project:

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (20 September 1965), the Zombies recorded "If It Don't Work Out," "Whenever You're Ready," "It's All Right," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 2 October.

"If It Don't Work Out"

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I was undecided whether I was going to include the radio broadcasts in my recording the songs on their anniversaries, but it couldn't hurt.  I'll duplicate some, but there are some songs that the Zombies recorded only for radio shows.

Since last time I recorded it, I've done a bit of work in figuring out the guitar parts to "If It Don't Work Out" (or maybe I worked on it for my last recording but didn't include it; I don't remember).  During at least part of the verses there's a repeated figure, but I'm not sure if I have it absolutely correct.  It's an approximation at least.  The part during the bridge I'm pretty confident about, although I may not have the exact rhythm (I sort of think that a guitarists' rhythm is like penmanship: you can't do much to change it; it's just whatever comes naturally).

I used the studio version as a basis for my recording, although I don't think there's really any difference in the parts that I know between the studio version and the live recording.

Songs from 20 September 1965 Radio Session

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I just listened to the group of songs that the Zombies recorded for radio fifty years ago to-day, and I noticed some things.

"If It Don't Work Out"

In each of the verses, there are slight lyrical difference from the studio version.  Since the studio version (8 July 1965) was recorded before this live version (20 September 1965), I don't think it's an earlier set of lyrics that was revised before recording; it might just be Blunstone's mis-remembering the words, which he's admitted doing in some interviews.

Where the studio version has "When she loved me nothing in the world could touch her love, and now / The light of love has gone..." this live version has "When she loved me nothing in this world could touch her love, and now / The light of love is back...."  The second verse changes from "will / She turn around and tell me she don't love me anymore" to "will / She turn away and tell me she don't love me anymore."  And "I / Will know and feel the joys and pleasures that I'm dreaming of" becomes "I / Will know and share the joys and pleasures that I'm dreaming of," which actually resembles the first lines of "Walking in the Sun" - "We'll be walking in the sun / And share our joy with everyone."

I find these really interesting because while they're only minor word changes, they result in fairly significant changes in meaning.  Replacing "has gone" with "is back" and "around" with "away" provides complete opposites.

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

This isn't specific to the Zombies' version, but the rhyme scheme here is interesting.  For the first two verses, the same rhyme is retained for the third line ("Tonight the light of love is in your eyes" and "When I can feel the magic of your sighs"), but after the bridge, the third line of the third verse doesn't fit with the "eyes"/"sighs" rhyme.  It's "So tell me now; I won't ask again."  So the impatience or insistence of the speaker/singer trumps the rhyme scheme that the first two verses have established.  The "will my heart be broken" in the bridge might have something to do with this too: after the bridge, the established rhyme scheme is broken.

"When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes"

I just started the transcription for this to-day (I generally don't do the transcriptions all at once; I just make a bit of progress each time I listen to the song), and I noticed what might be a lyrical inspiration for "Brief Candles."  In the second and third verse, there's the line "Not a word did she say," which is somewhat similar to "He does not say a single word, no word of love to say" in "Brief Candles."

Saturday Club

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According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (20 September 1965), the Zombies recorded "If It Don't Work Out," "Whenever You're Ready," "It's All Right," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 2 October.

"If It Don't Work Out"

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I still know only the bass part and the very brief organ part for "If It Don't Work Out."

I noticed something about the rhythm, but I'm not sure how well I can explain it.  In guitar finger-picking, there's a 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 pattern, and that's present (in a way) in the bass and the drums in "If It Don't Work Out."  In the first part of the verses at least.  The bass plays on the 1s in that pattern, and the drum sound is different on different beats.  In that 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 pattern, it emphasizes the first two 3s and then the last 2.

I'm not sure if I explained that well, but suffice it to say that "If It Don't Work Out" is a good example of how Rod Argent wrote parts that are integral.

"How We Were Before" / "If It Don't Work Out"

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I just listened to those five songs that were recorded fifty years ago yester-day (I forgot to do it yester-day because I was busy with other things).  Anyway, two things:

The second line of every verse in "How We Were Before" starts with an adverb:  "Gradually through on us," "Continually long to be again," and "Mercifully turned to be again."

There's a bit of parallelism between two verses of "If It Don't Work Out."  The first verse asks, "Can I return the joy she's dreaming of?," and the last verse ends with "I / Will know and feel the joys and pleasures that I'm dreaming of."

Recording Session

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According to the liner notes of both Zombie Heaven and The Decca Stereo Anthology, fifty years ago to-day (8 July 1965) the Zombies recorded "How We Were Before," "I Love You," "If It Don't Work Out," "I Know She Will," and "Don't Cry for Me."

"If It Don't Work Out"

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I was listening to my recording of just the bass and organ from "If It Don't Work Out," and I kept thinking that it was "I'll Keep Trying" instead.  And then I realized why: both have sort of an alternating rhythm between the bass part and the piano part (although in "If It Don't Work Out," the bass part is also played on piano, at least during some sections).  I think it's something like the bass playing on the beat and the piano playing on the offbeats (electric piano in the case of "I'll Keep Trying").  Both songs are by Rod Argent who seems to use interesting rhythms like that a lot.  They were recorded only two weeks apart, too - "I'll Keep Trying" on 24 June 1965 (incidentally Colin's 20th birthday) and "If It Don't Work Out" on 8 July.

I transcribed the lyrics this morning, and the song has some really interesting line breaks.  At least as far as I've formatted it.  I went more by phrasing than rhyme scheme, which you could make a case for.  In any case there are some interesting phrasings.  Like, "When she loved me nothing in the world could touch her love, and now / The light of love has gone, can I return the joy she's dreaming of?"  The line break there clearly demonstrates that "now" something is different.

I'm not sure, but "the light of love" might be a reference to the Supremes' "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through His Eyes," which the Zombies did on the BBC (as "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes").  However, I've also found that phrase ("love light") in Herman's Hermits' "You Won't Be Leaving" and even "I'll Be Home for Christmas," so I'm hesitant to assert that it's from "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through His Eyes."  It's certainly possible, but it seems to be a more common phrase than I'd thought.  (Interestingly, they did "If It Don't Work Out" and "When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes" for the same radio program - Saturday Club, recorded 20 September 1965 and broadcast 2 October.)

The line break in the second verse ("Will she still care for me the way she did before, will / She turn around and tell me she don't love me anymore") seems to have the singer/speaker stumble in his singing.  Like he runs out of breath in the middle of a sentence because of his insistent questioning and worry.

And the chorus has typical Zombie themes of crying and returning home:  "The tears that I cried in vain / Won't bring her home."  Dreaming, an-other common theme in their songs, is mentioned in two of the verses ("can I return the joy she's dreaming of?" and "the joys and pleasures that I'm dreaming of"), but I think they're more aspirational dreams than sleeping dreams.

Finally, if you listen closely to the beginning of the track as it appears on the third disc of Zombie Heaven, you can hear someone say, "Nice and driving, alright?"  I think it's Gus Dudgeon, the engineer, but I'm not certain.

"If It Don't Work Out"

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I might have hit a wrong note in the organ part, but I was having some problems with recording it and didn't want to have to do it again.

Most of the bass part is just D notes, so it's not that interesting just by itself.

Also, an-other new one in the catalogue.

"If It Don't Work Out"

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While listening to Zombie Heaven yester-day, I thought the bass part for "If It Don't Work Out" sounded pretty easy.  I think I just figured it out (the only difficult part is remembering what rhythm corresponds to what section of the song), along with the organ part at the very end of the bridge, which I'm pretty sure is the only organ part in the whole song.

It's sort of late though, and I still have stuff to do to-day, so I'm not going to record a version to-night.  Maybe to-morrow.