A Keyboard Approach

A couple months ago, I subscribed to the Zombies Fan Club's YouTube channel.  This morning, I was very surprised to find two clips from Rod Argent's A Keyboard Approach in my subscription box.  According to Russo's Collector's Guide it came out (on VHS) on 11 August 1992.  A couple times (even as recently as a month or two ago), I went looking for a used copy on Amazon, but I never had any luck.

It's an instructional video that runs just over an hour (66 minutes), but the clips feature only Argent's performances of "Baby Don't You Cry" and "A 4th Gymnopedie" from Red House (1988).

In the video itself, instead of "Baby Don't You Cry," as it's titled on Red House, Argent calls the song "Baby Don't You Cry No More," which is the title it later had on Out of the Shadows (2001).

Argent confirms what I was pretty certain of: "A 4th Gymnopedie" (titled "A fourth gymnopédie" on Classically Speaking) is meant as "a little tribute to" Satie's gymnopédies.  In verifying my spelling there, I discovered that Satie's gymnopédies were published in 1888, so Argent's "A 4th Gymnopedie" from 1988 is from a hundred years later.

A little bit of scrolling credits is included at the end of the video with "A 4th Gymnopedie."  All that's visible is "Fugue in C minor," which I'm assuming is Bach's Fugue in C minor, BWV 846 from The Well-Tempered Clavier, which Argent later recorded for Classically Speaking (1998).

I'm pretty sure that the "Baby Don't You Cry" video was filmed in the same studio where the Zombies recorded Breathe Out, Breathe In.  Here's the video of the title track for comparison:

Obviously, the equipment is moved around, but the windows look the same.

"I Remember When I Loved Her"

I've been reading Romeo and Juliet (for only the second time), and I recently started act 3, scene 2.  It begins with a soliloquy by Juliet in which she wishes for the night to come sooner because Romeo is coming to meet her under cover of darkness.  Addressing the night, she says, "Hood my unmanned blood bating in my cheeks, / With thy black mantle, till strange love grow bold, / Think true love acted simple modesty" (III.ii.14-16).  One of the glosses in my edition explains that "strange" in this context means "unfamiliar."

Of course, this reminded me of "I Remember When I Loved Her" and its "Now we are strange / No more in love."  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the only comments by the Zombies themselves are about the word choice there.  Chris White says, "Rod was adamant about that lyric, 'now we are strange, no more in love,'" and Rod Argent says, "It just sounded like quite an elegant phrase, using strange in its old English sense, being estranged or not alike."

It also reminded me of Argent's comment about Shakespeare's language in Johansen's The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream (p. 30):  "The language spoke to me; it had an indefinable, spiritual quality."

I'm not sure if Shakespeare's use of strange in Romeo and Juliet had any direct bearing on Argent's use of strange in "I Remember When I Loved Her," but they do have the same (archaic) meaning in their respective contexts.  Both situations are about love too, although they're going in opposite directions.  Later in the soliloquy, Juliet comments that while she's now married to Romeo, she hasn't really had the chance to experience love.  Their relationship is still in its early stages.  The relationship in "I Remember When I Loved Her," however, is already over and the singer/speaker is looking back on it.

Odessey and Oracle

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (12 June 1967), the Zombies did some work on Odessey and Oracle.  The entry for 12 June reads: "EMI Abbey Road Room 53 recording: 'Friends of Mine', 'A Rose for Emily', 'This Will Be Our Year' (mono mixing)."

It seems that this was the mixing session for the mono versions of these songs; however, "A Rose for Emily" is mentioned again later in the list of production dates.  10 July lists "recording... 'A Rose for Emily' (reduction master)," and an-other mono mixing session with "A Rose for Emily" was on 20 July.

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the cello part "was included in some initial mixes but eventually discarded."  So it seems that this 12 June mixing session was for the version with cello.

"Hung up on a Dream" was the other song recorded at that 10 July session, and because that includes mellotron, I'm assuming that 10 July was also when the mellotron part for "A Rose for Emily" was recorded (which was also later discarded).

"This Will Be Our Year"

According to the liner notes of Zombie Heaven and the 50th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, fifty years ago to-day (2 June 1967) the Zombies recorded "This Will Be Our Year."

Recording Session

According to the liner notes of Zombie Heaven and the 50th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, fifty years ago to-day (1 June 1967) the Zombies recorded "Friends of Mine" and "A Rose for Emily."  This was the first recording session for Odessey and Oracle.