Sunday, February 26, 2017

"Smokey Day"

Yester-day, I figured out the vocal melody for the first two verses of the Zombies' version of "Smokey Day," by which I mean I not only figured out the notes but I also notated them.  There are some interesting connections between one musical phrase and the lyrics that are sung to it.

The last line of the first two verses is something like:


I was having some trouble distinguishing the lead vocal from the harmony vocal, so this might be something of an amalgamation, but when I played what I notated, it sounded right.

The last two lines of the first verse are "Weave the spell of evening / Into patterns of my life," so that wave-like figure - particularly in the second bar of what I've notated - represents the weaving (although "Into patterns of my life" is what's actually sung to that phrase).

The last two lines of the second verse are "Soft, serene she dances / Moving sweetly through my life," so again, that wave-life figure represents the movement.  "Life" - in both this verse and the previous - is sung to an A note, and the phrase passes through A notes in its rising and falling, so if that pitch is taken to represent life (which seems appropriate since the song is in A minor), it's almost a literal "Moving... through my life."  During this line the harpsichord track moves through the stereo channels, so that movement is represented in an-other way too.

I referenced Colin Blunstone's version (on One Year), but there are some differences in the melody.  (I think the voice that's panned right has the melody and the voice that's panned left has the harmony.)  At the end of the first verse, this phrase has some different pitches.  The phrase at the end of the second verse is the same, but the rhythm is a bit different.