"Care of Cell 44"

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I've been reading Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, and last night I read a section about Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.  Swafford briefly mentions some tritones in the first two movements.  The tritone is also known as the diabolus in musica (the devil in music) because of its dissonance, but Swafford explains that "the implication here is not tragic or demonic but contrarian."

This made me realize that there's a tritone in "Care of Cell 44."  It's the last group of notes in the humming part just before "Feels so good you're coming home soon."  One vocal part has a G, and an-other has a C#, which together make a tritone.

In the past, I've written about elements in "Care of Cell 44" that seem to indicate that there's something off about the relationship that's described (I really need to make a post that compiles them because they're all over the place), and that tritone in the vocal parts is something else I can add to the list.

"Free Fall"

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When I listening to Argent a few days ago, I started thinking about the guitar part in the middle of "Free Fall."  I listened to just that section a few times (and figured out how to play it), and now I'm pretty sure that it's played with a guitar slide.  The final note isn't as distinct as the others; it's just the sustain from striking the previous note, but it's at a lower pitch because the guitar slide's moved down.

At first I was kind of dubious about slide guitar, but then I remembered that it's also present in "Hold Your Head Up," although that's from two or three years later.

"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."

"When the Lovelight Starts Shining through Her Eyes"

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Before this week, I knew none of this.  I started on the guitar chords a few days ago, but I wasn't getting very far, so I learned the bass part instead, and then the introductory electric piano phrase, after which I discovered that there really aren't many guitar chords.  Mostly, the guitar doubles either the vocal melody or the bass part, which - until learning it - I'd never noticed.

I'm not sure if I have the parts immediately before the choruses correct.  It seems like it's different every time.

Argent

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I just listened to Argent's eponymous album as part of my listening schedule, and - as always - I noticed things:

"Be Free"

I'm not exactly sure where the verse divisions are, but there's some parallelism either between the first two verses or within the first verse.

I said you'd be free, didn't I?
I said you'd climb high, didn't I?
Took you out to the sky
Told you one day you'd fly

You didn't believe me, did you then?
You didn't look up, did you then?
Didn't look to the sky
Didn't believe you'd fly
Didn't believe you'd fly

There's "didn't I" in the first verse (or first half of the first verse) and "did you then" in the second verse (or second half of the first).  There's the same verb with different subjects ending the first two lines of each verse (or each section).

"Dance in the Smoke"

The second and fourth lines of the verse (which is just repeated over and over again) are identical save for one word:

We will light a giant, burning fire tonight
We will build it and dance in the smoke
Every branch we'll tie somebody's worry to it
We will burn it and dance in the smoke

but those two different words alliterate with each other, so it's not a difference that sticks out that much.

"Free Fall"

I'd noticed before that during the hand-clapping part (which ends in a difficult rhythm before repeating), someone messes up and claps before they should.  But in listening to the song this time, I noticed that that mistake is after the line "That now I'm confused inside."  So while it's a mistake, it actually fits pretty well.  It's like it demonstrates the discord of the confusion.

"Stepping Stone"

I'd noticed before that in different iterations, the first line of what I guess is a chorus changes from "I would gladly make you happy" to "I would love to make you happy."  I realized listening to it this time that - duh! - it's a progression.  The feeling becomes more ardent as the song goes on.

"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.

—

*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.

"It's All Right"

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Yester-day I did some work on figuring out the parts to "It's All Right."  I have almost all of the chords, but I'm still missing a few, so all I have so far is the opening electric piano figure and the guitar chords under it (although the rhythm in the later section isn't right; I haven't done much work on that yet).

"Whenever You're Ready"

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There are only minor changes between this and the last recording I did.

I learnt the introductory electric piano part a little better.  Last time, I had just single notes, but I think the C (the final note in the phrase) has a G under it.

I'd been playing the guitar part during the first part of the verses in octaves just because I thought it sounded better (and was more fun to play that way).  I think it's that way in the original too.  It sounds like there are octaves in the live version.  In the process of recording this, I realized that there are some newer live versions that I should reference (including the Live at Metropolis Studios version, which I can even reference visually since there's a DVD).

Via The Decca Stereo Anthology version (which is the version I used as a template for this), I discovered that in the transition to the bridge, the guitar doesn't play chords; it doubles the C B A phrase that the bass plays.

"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.

"I Can't Make up My Mind"

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For some reason, I got to thinking about "I Can't Make up My Mind" last night, and I realized that I hadn't figured out the bass part yet.  I knew the chords though, so the bass part wasn't too hard to figure out.  There's one phrase that I'm still a bit unsure of, but maybe that's just because it's different from all the others (they're all three- or four-note phrases, but that one has - I think - three pitches where the rest have only two).

I also figured out the little keyboard part during the solo.  There's the first guitar phrase, which Argent sort of replies to, so it seems as if the solo is going to have this interplay between guitar and organ, but the rest of the organ part during the solo isn't very prominent.

I followed my last recording and used electric piano, but now I think that it's actually organ all the way through.

"This Will Be Our Year"

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Last night it struck me that I hadn't tried figuring out the trombone parts in "This Will Be Our Year" for a long time (I think I tried maybe two or three years ago but didn't get anywhere).  I've been practicing trombone everyday for almost two months now, so I've gotten better (although I'm still pretty bad), and I thought I'd give it a go.

This is only the part during the first bridge (although I did play through the first verse with piano and bass), but the longer it goes on, the more unsure I am about it.  I don't know how many trombones are in the original (the 40th anniversary concert would suggest three), but I have four - two for each part.

I find it interesting though that the first part is chromatic (D#, D, C#), and - if I have it correct - it splits into thirds for the quotation in the lyrics, the "'Darling, I love you' / You gave me faith to go on."

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, this was arranged by Ken Jones, the Zombies' producer during their Decca days.  I'm wondering how much involvement the Zombies themselves had because that three-note chromatic phrase is typical of their writing.  Did they stick it in themselves, or was that Jones' emulating their style?  Also, since it was arranged by Jones and played by session players, I'm assuming that somewhere there exists the written arrangements, which I would love to see.

Odessey and Oracle

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Over the last week or so, I made a concordance of the Odessey and Oracle lyrics.  I haven't really started looking into it (I only just finished it), but I've discovered that - in Odessey and Oracle at least - the themes that I thought were prominent in Zombies songs (home, dreams, remembering/memory, and crying/tears/etc.) aren't actually that prominent.

I based this on my own transcriptions, although I did finally switch over to "And autumn sad how brown her eyes" in "Changes."  I still think it's better as "And autumn sighed" for the parallelism with "In spring her voice she spoke," but I have started to hear "sad."  I didn't weight the words, by which I mean that I didn't count them twice if they're sung as a harmony part (like parts of the verses in "Care of Cell 44").  Obviously, I counted them if they were a distinct part in the backing vocals, so the "Emily, Emily see / How the sun is shining again" in "A Rose for Emily," the "Spoke with soft persuading words" in "Hung up on a Dream" (because while they echo the first two lines of the third verse, they don't echo the rest of the lines), the friend-listing backing in "Friends of Mine," and things like that are included.

It's entirely possible that there are errors (typing out each word and adding up the totals are both particularly susceptible to mistakes).

If you count "ooh" ("I Want Her She Wants Me") and "ah" ("Friends of Mine") in the lead vocals (I didn't count them in the backing vocals), there are 505 different words, although some that are spelt the same may be used differently (while "so" is only ever used as an adverb in the Odessey and Oracle lyrics, it can also be used as a conjunction).  I should note that of the five instances of "Joy," four of them are the name in "Friends of Mine" and the other is the emotion in "Maybe after He's Gone."

I'm putting the whole list (once by frequency and once alphabetically) below a "read more," lest I clog your dashboard.  I tried to keep a capital if a word started a line or is a proper noun, but I might have inadvertently dropped some.

"Circus"

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A few days ago, I read this epigram by Palladas in my literary anthology:

This life a theater we well may call,
Where every actor must perform with art;
Or laugh it though and make a farce of all,
Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.

At first, I just thought that it was possible that this was the origin of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage..." because he took a lot of stuff from the Greeks.  But then I became aware of the similarity between this ("All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players") and some lines in the first verse of Argent's "Circus":  "In the circus / Each must play a part."

I'd thought that I'd written about "All the world's a stage..." before, but not about "Circus," so I went looking through my old posts and found this one that mentions "All the world's a stage..." and "A Moment in Time" (and its "Life is a stage where / We all just act a part") from Breathe Out, Breathe In.

Those lines from "Circus" don't seem as strong a reference to Shakespeare as those in "A Moment in Time," but they do still seem to be one.  So now there are two Zombies/Argent songs that reference those Shakespeare lines.

Odessey and Oracle

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I listened to Odessey and Oracle to-day (with bonus tracks), and I discovered a lot of new things!

"Care of Cell 44"

The last three lines of the first verse all start with words that end in "-ing," but their meaning is sort of ambiguous.

Good morning to you I hope you're feeling better, baby
Thinking of me while you are far away
Counting the days until they set you free again
Writing this letter hoping you're OK

The "thinking" seems to go along with the "you're" from the previous line, so: "I hope you're feeling better [and] thinking of me...."  (Although the "thinking of me..." could also be a participial.)  The subject of "counting" could be either the "you" or the singer/speaker.  "I hope you're... counting the days..." or "[I am] counting the days."  (Again, "counting the days..." could be a participial too, modifying either the "you" or the speaker/singer.)  The subject of "writing" is clearly the speaker/singer.  Things could be divided a couple different ways there.

"A Rose for Emily"

There's an extra line in the second and third verses (which I knew), but this time I realized the significance of the music's repetition there.  The chords under the second half of "The roses in her garden fade away" (A and Bm) are also used for the next line: "Not one left for her grave."  Musically, there's a return to "the roses in her garden," as if to check if there's one for her grave.

"Maybe after He's Gone"

There's some parallelism in the lines "I feel I'll never breathe again / I feel life's gone from me."  Particularly because both start with "I feel," "I'll never breathe again" is equated to "life's gone from me."

"Brief Candles"

I got thinking about the "tight" in the first line: "There she sits her hands are held, tight around her glass."  In that rendering, it's an adjective, but it could also be parsed as a flat adverb:  "There she sits her hands are held tight[ly] around her glass."  There's no real difference in the meaning, but grammatically it's different.

I also discovered a consistency in the rhyme scheme.  Each verse has a rhyme scheme of AABB, but the B's carry over: the last two lines of the first verse end with "stay" and "way;" the those in both the second and third verses end with "say" and "way."

I think I noticed this before but forgot to write about it: the vocals are double-tracked during Blunstone's verse (as are the others'), except for the second "say" in "He does not say a single word, no word of love to say."  It draws attention to itself because that second voice is missing, and it musically portrays the lack of a "word of love."

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

The continual repetition of "I want her she wants me" at the end mirrors the cyclical nature of the statement itself.  It just keeps going around.

"Butcher's Tale"

I noticed this earlier, but I've neglected to write about it:  the repetition of the "can't/won't stop shaking" line reflects the inability to cease.

A new thing I noticed though is the rhyme scheme of the first verse, which is different from all the others.  The first verse has ABAB ("trade," "fee," "stayed," "see") where the others are ABCB.  So as the speaker/singer looks back on his past life ("A butcher, yes, that was my trade...") things have a stronger coherence than they do once he goes to war.

"Friends of Mine"

I'd previously noted the parallelism in "That's something to see; that's nothing to hide," but I noticed a new one in the chorus:  "And they've got something it's so hard to find" parallels with "And they've got something you don't often find."  It's not as strictly parallel as some other instances, but it's pretty close.

—Bonus Tracks—
"I'll Call You Mine"

I've been meaning to mention this since 19 April:  although "I'll Call You Mine" is a bonus track, it works really well sequenced after "Time of the Season" (as it is on one of the Odessey and Oracle CD re-issues I have) because they're in relative keys.  "Time of the Season" is in E minor, and "I'll Call You Mine" is (at least mostly) in G major.

I did notice a new thing too.  During this section:

I couldn't chance to break the spell we had
The happy times we had, and yet the times were sad
Just for me, baby, you understood then
I was afraid to try to call you mine

Blunstone is singing the lead vocal, and Argent is doing the harmony vocal.  But Argent's harmony vocal drops out for the third line.  So there's only one voice (Blunstone's) singing "Just for me...."  It emphasizes the exclusivity.

"Don't Cry for Me"

An-other thing I've neglected to write about:  the "down" in the lines "Don't break your heart / Thinking you have let me down" is broken into syllables (a melisma), and the later notes are lower in pitch, so the word itself is going down.

"Smokey Day"

Like the "tight" in "Brief Candles," there are words here that could be either adjectives or flat adverbs:  "Soft, serene, she dances" or "Soft[ly], serene[ly] she dances."

"She Loves the Way They Love Her"

Surely I must have noticed this before, but I don't think I've written about it:  in the first line of the third verse, there's a multitude of internally-rhyming words:  "Crying, dying, sighing, whining, shining in the microphone."

"It's Only Money"

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In at least two different circumstances, I recently read either part of the Sermon on the Mount or an-other work that references it.  One part in particular is relevant to this project:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  (Matthew 6:19-21)

I'm fairly certain that these verses are referenced in Argent's "It's Only Money" (both Pt. 1 and Pt. 2).  Both songs have the lines "It's not what's at the door / But the money you have in your soul" and the whole stanza:

Think of what you save
If you keep your money in a cave
But keep it in your mind
What good's a fortune left behind

"It's Only Money, Pt. 2" also has a similar stanza that "It's Only Money, Pt. 1" doesn't share:

Keep it in your head
You won't take it with you when you're dead
Bear it in your mind
What good's a fortune left behind

They all share a focus on things that are permanent rather than things that are transient.

"Bring You Joy"

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Yester-day I happened across the phrase "the very depths of my soul" in a book I was reading.  I knew that I knew those words set to music, but the song itself didn't come to me immediately.  In between recognizing it and identifying it, I realized that the melody descends, as if to reflect the depths.

Eventually I realized that it's from Argent's "Bring You Joy" (although slightly different: "to the depths of my soul").  I checked the recording to confirm the notes.  The "depths of my soul" part is a diatonic descent: F, Eb, D, C.

"Beechwood Park"

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Last year I started a project in which I read all of my literary anthologies.  I started with The Norton Introduction to Literature, 5th edition (which I'm still reading over a year later).  A few days ago, I read some things about pastoral poems.  After Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," which the Norton provides as an example of a pastoral poem, it says that the pastoral genre is

a poetic kind that concerns itself with the simple life of country folk and describes that life in stylized, idealized terms.  The people in a pastoral poem are usually (as here) shepherds, although they may be fishermen or other rustics who lead an outdoor life and are involved in tending basic human needs in a simplified society; the world of the poem is one of simplicity, beauty, music, and love.  The world always seems timeless in pastoral; people are eternally young, and the season is always spring, usually May.  Nature seems endlessly green and the future entirely golden.  Difficulty, frustration, disappointment, and obligation do not belong in this world at all; it is blissfully free of problems.

As I read this, I got to thinking about "Beechwood Park."  I'd never thought of it as pastoral before, but I think it does belong in the category even though it doesn't match all of the conventions that the Norton lays out.

I could probably make a case for each of the factors listed above (save for spring, since "Beechwood Park" takes place in summer), but what I think is most interesting about "Beechwood Park" as pastoral poem is the colors.  The Norton says that in pastoral poems, "Nature seems endlessly green and the future entirely golden," and those are the only two colors mentioned in "Beechwood Park."  The first verse starts with "Do you remember summer days just after summer rain / When all the air was damp and warm in the green of country lanes," and the second with "Do you remember golden days and golden summer sun."

In the BBC Mastertapes interview, Rod Argent says something about Odessey and Oracle's being about color:  "A lot of the songs were about color and colors."  They're talking about the mellotron, so it seems like they're talking more about tone color and the particular timbre of the mellotron, but since it's "color and colors," literal color (like the green and gold of "Beechwood Park") might be included in that too.  In any case, "Beechwood Park" uses color in a way that aligns it with the conventions of pastoral poetry, at least as they're outlined by the Norton.

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

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I finally got around to looking into something that's been on my list since 15 October!

I don't remember the circumstances, but I got to wondering if "She's Coming Home" is like Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."  There was an NPR article about it early last year, and one of Cooke's biographers briefly mentions the song's structure:  "Each verse is a different movement: The strings have their movement, the horns have their movement."  The melody of the verses is more-or-less the same, but the arrangement changes.

"She's Coming Home" - while it has a much simpler scope - does a similar thing.  The first verse ("I saw her walking out the other day...") has piano playing the chords and rapid guitar strumming that bridges the chord changes, while the bass and drums anchor everything.  But during the second verse ("Oh, baby, baby, baby, I'll be good to you..."), while the vocal melody is more-or-less the same (I haven't looked into it a great deal, but I think the phrases start on B notes instead of the E notes of the first verse), the arrangement is different.  The piano plays just the bass notes (almost inaudibly; it wasn't until The Decca Stereo Anthology that I even knew the piano was still present); the organ plays the chords; and the guitar switches from the frantic strumming of the first verse to a single strum on the first beat of every bar (although it starts on the fifth measure).  The bass and drums still anchor everything, but as the verse goes on, there's a significant decrescendo in the drums.

Aside from the similarity to the changing arrangement in "A Change Is Gonna Come," the differences in the arrangement reflect the lyrics.  The first verse has a sort of insistence, like the re-awakened feelings of the speaker/singer after he sees a girl he used to love and realizes that he still loves her; the second has an almost tender earnestness as the singer/speaker pleads for the renewal of the relationship.

Like all of these this-song-seems-to-be-inspired-by-this-other-song posts, this is purely conjecture, but there is evidence that the Zombies knew (and still know) "A Change Is Gonna Come."  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes (under "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me"), Chris White explains that "We also had a go at Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come.'"  And in this interview from a few years ago, Rod Argent says that it's a song he wishes he'd written (in the section starting at about 4:30).

I listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" and transcribed the lyrics, and I noticed what might be a connection to "This Will Be Our Year," too.  Every verse in "A Change Is Gonna Come" ends with "It's been a long, a long time comin', but I know a change gonna come," and every verse in "This Will Be Our Year" ends with "This will be our year, took a long time to come."  Again, "This Will Be Our Year" doesn't have the social scope of "A Change Is Gonna Come," but it does have that similar structure.

"Remember You"

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I was going to add some more recording dates to the queue, and I realized that "Remember You" (the single version) slipped through the cracks because the dates in the Zombie Heaven liner notes and The Decca Stereo Anthology liner notes don't agree.  Zombie Heaven says 2 March 1965, but The Decca Stereo Anthology (which has the note: "This sessionography updates and corrects those features in the "Zombie Heaven" box set") says 27 August 1965.

So, I'm about a week late, but, hey, the single version of "Remember You" was recorded about fifty years ago.

"I Love You"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I listened to "I Love You" yester-day and realized that the bass parts are (to some degree) doubled by electric piano.  Also, I figured out a bit of the organ part.  I'm still a bit unsure of it though.

This stops just before the electric piano solo because the bass part changes there and I haven't learned it yet.

"I Love You" is one of the songs in the book I have by Alfred Music, so I referenced that for the chords during the organ part.  It says there's a C major 7th, and - playing the song on guitar - I agree with that, but it sounds wrong when I play a C major 7th on organ.  For this recording, I just played an inverted C major so that the C is the highest note.

"Sometimes"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I learned part of the bass part for "Sometimes."  I'm still missing most of the part during the "Well, I'm so happy..." section.  But I figured some is better than nothing.  There are glissandi after "I know this love is real," and I might have overdone those a bit.

I'm still unhappy with the guitar part.  I'm pretty sure it's accurate as far as tonality, but not as far as rhythm, and what I have sounds dumb.

"Whenever You're Ready" b/w "I Love You"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (3 September 1965), the Zombies' "Whenever You're Ready" b/w "I Love You" was released in the U.K.

"Kind of Girl"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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After recording this, I discovered that the last time I recorded "Kind of Girl" was also on 2 September.  I should make this a thing.

The whole point of recording these every year is so I can track the progress I've made, and in order to do that I need to make progress, so I tried figuring out the bass part for this.  I spent only about fifteen or twenty minutes on it.  I'm pretty confident about most of it (the parts that are just the root notes of the chords), but that part after the first verse sounds weird.

"Woman"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I haven't learned any more of "Woman."  I know everything except the drum part and the solos.  I'm still a bit unsure of a few sections of the bass part too; it just goes so fast.

I make a few errors, but they're mostly just tempo-related, and I didn't feel like trying the parts yet again.