"Lula Lula"

When I listened to New World on the 14th, I noticed a couple instances in "Lula Lula" where the melody connects to the lyrics.  "Love's falling around you" in the first and third verses and "It's falling around me" in the second verse are all sung to a descending melody (D D C B B A), which musically represents that "falling."

"I Love You"

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I just tried figuring out the guitar part for "I Love You."  So far, I have only the verses, but I noticed something interesting.  They're based on the chords A minor, Asus4, F major (7th?), and F major 6 (and E major).  Those same chords also make up an entire section in "Lula Lula" (from the New World album, which I think is too often neglected).  In "Lula Lula," the "Hold my hand..." sections are based on these same chords, but in a slightly different order.  "I Love You" has them as |: A minor / Asus4 / A minor :| |:F major / F major 6 / F major :|, and they're in almost the opposite order in "Lula Lula" -  |: Asus4 / A minor :| |: F major 6 / F major :|.

Both songs are - perhaps not surprisingly - in the same key (A minor) and written by Chris White.

"Like Honey" and "Lula Lula"

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Way back in May 2012, I noted the similarities between the opening guitar figures for the Zombies' "Lula Lula" (on the New World album) and Argent's "Like Honey" (the first track on Argent).  (I'm actually sort of embarrassed about how insistent I was.  And I think I was wrong; everything I've found credits "Like Honey" to Argent and White.)  After learning both of them (both of the guitar parts at least), I discovered that they both start with an arpeggiated A minor.  Recently, I realized that both also contain chromatic phrases within the arpeggios.

In "Like Honey," the chromatic phrase is in that opening arpeggiated part.  While the higher notes mostly stay around A minor, the bottom note of the arpeggios goes from A to G to F# to F to E (incidentally, this phrase - A G F# F E - is also part of the bass line in the Zombies' "Indication").

"Lula Lula" is the opposite.  In the part after the opening, the bottom note goes up - from E to F to F# to G.

So, along with the same opening arpeggiated A minor, both songs have a chromatic figure from G to E.  One going up and one going down.

"Lula Lula"

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I learned this from the demo, so it's slower and slightly different from the version that appears on New World.  Also, I had to extend it a bit at the end because even the demo ends in a fade out, and I'm against fade outs and refuse to use them.

"Leave Me Be" / "Lula Lula"

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I'm not absolutely certain on either of these, but I think I figured out the rest of the solo for "Leave Me Be" and the two or three chords (or rather chord shapes, since they're not strummed) in "Lula Lula."

In related news, most of the Zombies songs I know are the ones that Chris White wrote….