"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

I had some old notes on "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and in looking at the song again, I found a few more features to write about.  The Zombies recorded two versions of the song for the BBC.  I'm more familiar with the first (recorded for Saturday Club on 20 September 1965) because it appears on both Zombie Heaven and The BBC Radio Sessions.  The second version (recorded for The Beat Show on 8 November 1965) appears only on The BBC Radio Sessions.  My comments below are based on the first version, with a couple footnotes on significant differences in the second.

In the line "You give your love so sweetly," the phrase "so sweetly" is sung with melismas (F# E | F# E E), giving a sense of degree, and in the line "Is this a lasting treasure," the phrase "lasting treasure" is sung with melismas (B A C# B | C# B B, I think*), lending something of a sense of the durative nature of "lasting."

In the line "When I can feel the magic of your sighs"**, "sighs" is sung with a descending melisma (A G# F#), providing the impression of a sigh.

Of these features, the Shirelles' version (in C major rather than the Zombies' A major) has just a melisma'd "treasure" (E D D) and "sighs" (C A).

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*The second version has a melisma here, too, but it's more complex.

**In the second version, this line is "Well, I recall the magic of your sighs," although in the Shirelles' version, it's "Can I believe the magic of your sighs?"

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

Recently I was thinking about the Zombies' version of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," which they recorded live for a radio show in 1965.  Apparently I haven't posted the chords before, so here they are.

Verses:
A major | B minor | E major
A major | E major
C# major | F# minor
D major | E major | A major

Bridge:
D major | C# minor
D major | A major
D major | C# minor
F# minor | B major | D major | E major

The last verse is a bit different.  There's an instrumental break over the first half, and after the second half, the D major | E major | A major progression is repeated a few times (for the repeated line "Will you still love me tomorrow?").

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.

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

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I got to thinking about "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" last night, and I realized that Argent includes one of his descending diatonic phrases that uses a 7th chord after the third line in each verse.  I didn't notice it earlier because I inverted the preceding F# minor on organ and the guitar doesn't play the 7th chord.  It's F# minor (C#, F#, A), F# minor 7/inverted A major (C#, E, A), D major (D, F#, A).  It's only three notes, but it is an example of that common feature.  Incidentally, that diatonic phrase is doubled in the backing vocals.

I got wondering about whether it's in the Shirelles' original though, so I referenced that, and I found that not only is that phrase not there (so it's original to the Zombies' version) but also the chords are different (and not just in a different key).  I checked Carole King's version on Tapestry (she co-wrote it), and that has the same chords (in the same key) as the Shirelles'.

The Zombies' version is in A major, but the Shirelles' and King's are both in C major.  For the first line of the verses, the Zombies have I ii V (A major, B minor, E major) where the Shirelles and King have I IV V (C major, F major, G major).  Back when I figured out the chords for the Zombies' version, I thought that the A major to B minor change was a weird modulation.  The original is more conventional... in the first line at least.  Both have a III chord (C# major in the Zombies' A major version; E major in the Shirelles' and King's C major versions) starting the third line of the verses, which - as I've pointed out before - is also a feature of "She Does Everything for Me."

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

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Only slight progress with this one.  Last time I recorded it, I intentionally didn't play the correct guitar rhythm.  It's more accurate this time, although there's still a lot I have to do in the bridge.  Also, I think I played the solo* an octave higher than it should be, and there are still some notes in the solo that are wrong.  I haven't put as much work into that as I should.

Last time, I played the organ part during the solo even though it isn't that way in the recording (apparently Argent was focused on the solo and didn't bother with the organ chord accompaniment).  I didn't play the organ chords this time, and it sounds weird without them, although that's probably just because I don't have the bass or drums parts.

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*Actually, since it's played by both guitar and electric piano, I'm not sure if it's technically a solo.  It's more like an instrumental break.

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.

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

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I just listened to Zombie Heaven Disc 4 and discovered that the solo in "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is played on both electric piano and electric guitar.  I can play the solo on electric guitar (at least the solo as I played in on electric piano in the version I did about a month ago, which might not be very accurate), but the transitioning back to chords is the difficult thing.

I should also note that I didn't play the guitar chord rhythms right in that version I did last month, but that was intentional.

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

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I think this is the first Zombies song that I've done that they didn't record "properly."  They did this live on the BBC.

Last month, I got a CD of the Shirelles greatest hits, and I listened to it for the first time to-day.  Since it includes "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (they did the original), I tried figuring out the Zombies' version.  I got the chords and at least an approximation of the electric piano solo (although I kept the organ part underneath, unlike the recording).  I'm not sure of the harmonies, so when the backing vocals' lyrics were the same as the lead vocals', I just sang them the same way (so because some parts are essentially quadruple-tracked [double-tracked lead vocals and double-tracked backing vocals] they're louder than I'd like).

I think Colin sings, "When I can feel the magic of your sighs" in the second verse (which I followed), but in the Shirelles' version, it's "Can I believe the magic of your sighs."  He also goes straight to "Will you still love me tomorrow" as the last line of the first verse, but that form doesn't come until the second verse.  The first is "But will you love me tomorrow."  Also, he takes the "and" out of the line "So tell me now, and I won't ask again," which makes him seem more insistent as a singer/speaker than that in the Shirelles' version.

I think there might be some connection between "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "She Does Everything for Me."  Both are mostly in A major with the prominent exception of a C# major.  The Zombies recorded "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" for Saturday Club on 20 September 1965 (and it was broadcast on 2 October 1965), and "She Does Everything for Me" was recorded in May 1966, so chronologically it's possible that "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" influenced "She Does Everything for Me."