"Imagine the Swan"

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I read in the liner notes to Zombie Heaven that the first part of "Imagine the Swan" is just arpeggiated chords like in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.  So I just sat down and figured them out.  The first two chords are F major and G minor, and I think the rest of the song is in the key of F major.

Falling Fifth

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I just realized that both "Hung up on a Dream" and "I'll Call You Mine" start with a falling fifth (D to G).

"This Will Be Our Year"

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I just tried out a thing with the bass part of "This Will Be Our Year" where I jump octaves after every other note.  I'm pretty sure that Jim Rodford plays it this way on the Live at Metropolis Studios album (I'd have to watch the DVD to be absolutely certain), but I think on the original record, it's just a straight descending chromatic phrase.

Still, I quite like the alternating octave version, and - while I'd have to do a bit of looking to find which ones - I think that sort of octave-jumping descending chromatic figure is in some of the organ works I have by Bach and/or Mendelssohn.  (Incidentally, the versions I have were recorded by Peter Hurford, who was the choirmaster at the St Albans Cathedral Choir while Rod Argent was a choirboy there.)

"Care of Cell 44"

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I tried to figure out the ending part of "Care of Cell 44."  I'm not sure what I have is right, but it's at least close.

I'm not a very good keyboardist, so I had to overdub some stuff to record this.  I simplified it a bit too.

"Beechwood Park"

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I learned a rough version of the organ part from "Beechwood Park."  Very rough, in fact.

I'm not sure whether it's the organ part or the guitar chords, but something's wrong during the "and the breeze would touch your hair / kiss your face and make you care" part.  I played a B major on guitar and an E note on the organ, and they don't go to-gether.

Odessey and Oracle

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I've been focusing on learning songs from Odessey and Oracle lately, so when I listened to it this morning, I was paying more attention than usual.  And I noticed some things.  (It's a bit weird to me that there are still things I'm only just now discovering about it.)

• The piano figure that occurs near the end of "Care of Cell 44" is musically foreshadowed by the a cappella parts earlier in the song.  They're the same notes; it's just that one is multi-tracked voices and the other is on piano.
• The final G in the first bass riff in "I Want Her She Wants Me" is an octave lower than the rest, which is not the way I'd been playing it.
• In "This Will Be Our Year," the chord progression goes from D minor to D major at the same time as the proclamation of love.  "And I won't forget the way you said [minor to major modulation] 'Darling, I love you.'"  It gives it more emphasis.
• I'd been suspicious of this, but I'm now pretty sure that the guitar solo on "Friends of Mine" is double-tracked.  In the stereo version, you can hear how one comes in just a little bit later than the other when it's repeated.
• "A Rose for Emily" and "Butcher's Tale" contain the same three-note phrase:  F E D.  Those sorts of musical phrases appearing in multiple songs may provide the album with some coherence.  (But I don't want to emphasize that too much - I don't know whether Rod Argent and Chris White consciously thought of that, whether it just illustrates musical sensibilities that they liked and unknowingly used frequently, or whether it's just a coincidence that these songs have similar musical features.)  Additionally, "Time of the Season" has a three-note falling phrase, but that's E D C.  And an-other similar feature is a bass part centered around two A's an octave apart, which occurs in "Care of Cell 44" (where they're separated by an E) and "Brief Candles" (where it's just an octave jump).

"Care of Cell 44"

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This is just the middle part - what I've been working on for a few days.

I'm really unsure about this one.  It doesn't sound wrong, but it also doesn't sound right.  Maybe it's just because the original has a tack piano or maybe Rod Argent played the chords with different inversions than I did.