"Tell Her No"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Originally, of the songs that were recorded at that session on 25 November, I was saving "Tell Her No" for last because I didn't know any of it (I think I knew the guitar phrase a few years ago, but I've forgotten it) and saving it until the end gave me more time to try to learn something.  But last night, I figured out the bass part, and it's really exciting, so I pushed it up to to-day.

Last month, I talked about a phrase based on the 5th, 7th, and octave scale degrees that's in both "Whenever You're Ready" and "Time of the Season."  It's in "Tell Her No" too!  It's at the beginning of each line in the verses.

"Tell Her No" is in E major, so the intervals in "Whenever You're Ready" (in G major) are the same, just lowered a sixth.  "Time of the Season" is in E minor, so two of the three notes (B and E) are the same ("Tell Her No" has D# where "Time of the Season" has D natural).

The Zombie Heaven liner notes (and I think a few other things I've read too) say that "Whenever You're Ready" was a strong contender for a hit song, so it's interesting that it shares that 5th-7th-octave phrase with two songs that were hits.

Now that I know this, I think I'm going to be bothered by interviews and articles and such where people say, "Oh, 'She's Not There' and 'Time of the Season' have the same kind of rhythm."  I mean, sure, maybe, but that section of "Tell Her No" and "Time of the Season" share the exact rhythm, and they have a very close tonality.

Additionally, the bass part for "Tell Her No" has two three-note chromatic phrases, and they're the same ones that are in the bass part for the rehearsal version of "The Way I Feel Inside" (which I also learned last night).  Both songs were recorded at the same session, too.  The phrases are B, C, C# and A, A#, B.  However, they're both ascending in "Tell Her No," where in "The Way I Feel Inside," that A, A#, B phrase is descending, so it's more like B, A#, A.