"Brief Candles"

I had an-other small realization while reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images.  As it's formatted in the book, the first verse of "Brief Candles" is:

There she sits, her hands are held

Tight around her glass

She only needs to be alone

She knows this mood will pass

To realise that she was strong

And he too weak to stay

And to realise that she is better off this way

I would have done it differently, but this formatting highlights a structural contrast between "she was strong" and "he too weak."  By itself, "he too weak" is just a phrase.  The preceding "she was strong" sets up an instance of ellipsis, and the verb is merely implied ("he [was] too weak").  "He too weak" needs "she was strong" in order to make sense (formally speaking, at least).  It can't stand on its own, and in a way, this dependence matches the person it describes.

"Beechwood Park"

I recently read about "Beechwood Park" in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images and realized that it's in the same category as the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in that it deals with a specific place from the writer's childhood.  In the book, Chris White says, "I had written that song when we were touring in the Philippines," and the Zombie Heaven liner notes explain that the Philippines tour was in March 1967.  "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were the Beatles' current release at the time (they were released as a double A-sided single in February 1967), so chronologically, it's possible that they inspired the basic subject matter of "Beechwood Park" (a look back at a childhood location).

"Maybe after He's Gone"

Yester-day, I read the lyrics for "Maybe after He's Gone" in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images and noticed a couple features in it.

From verse to verse, there's progressively less of "she," which illustrates her leaving.  She's there at the beginning ("She told me she loved me"); by the second verse, she herself is gone, and there are just vestiges of her left ("Her smile, her tears are part of me"); and by the third verse, the narrator is by himself ("I'm on my own... I'm alone").

I also realized that "Maybe after He's Gone" starts very similarly to the second and third verses of "Tell Her No."  The first line of "Maybe after He's Gone" is "She told me she loved me," which is only slightly different from "And if she should tell you, 'I love you'" and "If she tells you, 'I love you'" in "Tell Her No."

"A Rose for Emily"

In The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, I recently read about "A Rose for Emily."  Hugh comments that "Rod was quite right in his arrangement of this very beautiful song."  This made me realize that, instrumentally, "A Rose for Emily" is the sparsest song on Odessey and Oracle (the only instrument on it is piano).  I also realized that, in a way, this relative lack of instrumentation (compared to the rest of the album or even just to the preceding and following songs) matches some of the lyrics, particularly "not a rose for Emily" and "none for you."

"I Love You"

I'm currently re-reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images.  Recently, I read about "I Love You," and I realized that in one spot, the construction of the lyrics matches the meaning.

As it's formatted in the book, one section is:

If I could find the words in my mind

The words should explain, but the words won't come

If you could see what you mean to me

My words should explain, but the words won't come

Semantically, the line "If you could see what you mean to me" seems isolated.  ("My words should explain" follows it sequentially but not logically since the explaining words would precede the knowledge of "what you mean to me.")  The line is a protasis without an accompanying apodosis, so even in the construction here, there's a lack of words ("the words won't come").

"Trapeze"

I listened to Argent's Circus this morning and noticed a small feature in "Trapeze."  After the line "Freefall vision dragging me down," there's a descending phrase played on Moog (taking special advantage of the pitch glide), giving a sense of that "dragging... down."

"This Old Heart of Mine"

Recently, I re-watched the Zombies' performance of "This Old Heart of Mine" (mislabelled as "I Love You") in France in 1966:

For the first time, I noticed that Paul Atkinson is using a bit of vibrato.

More significantly, I realized that there's a similarity between "This Old Heart of Mine" and "Whenever You're Ready" in that - unless I'm mistaken - the guitar parts in both feature pairs of notes an octave apart.

According to the Zombie Heaven booklet, "Whenever You're Ready" pre-dates "This Old Heart of Mine."  A demo was recorded "April or June 1965," and the released version was recorded on 24 June 1965.  According to the chronology in the booklet, this television appearance (on Dents De Lait Dents De Loups) was on either 29 or 30 October 1966, and the liner notes of The BBC Radio Sessions add that the Zombies recorded further live versions of "This Old Heart of Mine" on 1 November 1966 and 10 October 1967.

The liner notes of both Zombie Heaven and The BBC Radio Sessions seem to indicate that the Zombies used the Isley Brothers' version of the song as a basis for their cover.  I hadn't heard it before, but I found it on YouTube (here's a link to the official lyric video).  It doesn't have these octave pairs (not on guitar, at least), so it seems that this is something that the Zombies added to the song, re-using an element from "Whenever You're Ready."

"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" a couple days ago and had a small realization about the line "Saved you the room you used to stay in ev'ry Sunday."  The phrase "ev'ry Sunday" is sung to notes of all different pitches (G A B C), giving a sense of number.

Odessey and Oracle

Last week, I found an-other small musical element that lends some cohesion to Odessey and Oracle.  I was playing the vocal melody from "Care of Cell 44" on organ and realized that a section of it contains all of the same pitches as the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me," which I wrote about recently.

The bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me" has only four pitches (G D E G'), something like this:

The vocal melody in "Care of Cell 44" is beyond my notational ability, but every other line of the verses is something like D D E D E D G' E D E G A B C (sometimes with the initial D omitted).  The first eleven notes (corresponding to the words "It's gonna be good to have you back again" in one line) match the pitches in the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me."

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

I was thinking about the bass part in "I Want Her She Wants Me" yester-day and had a notion about one section, although it may be a bit far-fetched.

In the coda, the bass plays something like this:

This section is played in the higher register, so I notated it in the treble clef.  I also resolved it with a high G, like the Zombies do in live performances, although in the version on Odessey and Oracle, these figures just repeat until the fade-out.

Most of these notes occur on the off-beats, and in a way, this matches the relationship described in the lyrics; the bass part emphasizes what's in-between the beats in the same way that the lyrics focus on the mutual nature of the relationship ("I want her; she wants me").

"Sometimes"

I listened to Begin Here a few days ago (on 25 November because one of the recording sessions for the album was on 25 November 1964), and I noticed a small feature in "Sometimes," which is included as a bonus track on the CD.

The line "I've been hurt so many times before" is sung to a melody something like this:

(I'm not completely sure of the key, although the song does end with a D major chord.)

There's a denser concentration of notes for the word "many" (sung to a pair of sixteenth notes), and to some degree, this gives a sense of its meaning.

Encore

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (22 November 1974), Argent's Encore (Epic S EPC 88063) was released in the U.K. The U.S. and Canada release (Epic PEG 33079) was on 9 December.

Additionally, the single "Keep on Rollin' (#2)" b/w "I Am the Dance of Ages (live)" (Epic S EPC 2849) was released in the U.K.  Apparently, this single wasn't released in the U.S.  As far as I can tell, this second version of "Keep on Rollin'" has never been re-issued.