Songs from 20 September 1965 Radio Session

Backdated, archival post

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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."