Odessey and Oracle

Last week, I found an-other small musical element that lends some cohesion to Odessey and Oracle.  I was playing the vocal melody from "Care of Cell 44" on organ and realized that a section of it contains all of the same pitches as the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me," which I wrote about recently.

The bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me" has only four pitches (G D E G'), something like this:

The vocal melody in "Care of Cell 44" is beyond my notational ability, but every other line of the verses is something like D D E D E D G' E D E G A B C (sometimes with the initial D omitted).  The first eleven notes (corresponding to the words "It's gonna be good to have you back again" in one line) match the pitches in the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me."

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

I was thinking about the bass part in "I Want Her She Wants Me" yester-day and had a notion about one section, although it may be a bit far-fetched.

In the coda, the bass plays something like this:

This section is played in the higher register, so I notated it in the treble clef.  I also resolved it with a high G, like the Zombies do in live performances, although in the version on Odessey and Oracle, these figures just repeat until the fade-out.

Most of these notes occur on the off-beats, and in a way, this matches the relationship described in the lyrics; the bass part emphasizes what's in-between the beats in the same way that the lyrics focus on the mutual nature of the relationship ("I want her; she wants me").

"Sometimes"

I listened to Begin Here a few days ago (on 25 November because one of the recording sessions for the album was on 25 November 1964), and I noticed a small feature in "Sometimes," which is included as a bonus track on the CD.

The line "I've been hurt so many times before" is sung to a melody something like this:

(I'm not completely sure of the key, although the song does end with a D major chord.)

There's a denser concentration of notes for the word "many" (sung to a pair of sixteenth notes), and to some degree, this gives a sense of its meaning.

Encore

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (22 November 1974), Argent's Encore (Epic S EPC 88063) was released in the U.K. The U.S. and Canada release (Epic PEG 33079) was on 9 December.

Additionally, the single "Keep on Rollin' (#2)" b/w "I Am the Dance of Ages (live)" (Epic S EPC 2849) was released in the U.K.  Apparently, this single wasn't released in the U.S.  As far as I can tell, this second version of "Keep on Rollin'" has never been re-issued.

"Music from the Spheres"

I recently recorded a version of "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" using the Hohner Pianet and Vox Continental sounds on my keyboard.  As I was editing a video for it, I was thinking about the lyrics, and I realized that they may have had an influence on Argent's "Music from the Spheres."  The first verse of "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" (as I know it, at least) is:

God rest you merry, gentlemen; let nothing you dismay

For Jesus Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day

To save us all from Satan's pow'r while we were gone astray

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy

The phrase "To save us all from Satan's pow'r" has the same basic idea and even some of the same vocabulary as the line "'God save us from the devil' was their prayer" in "Music from the Spheres."  Later in the song, "God save us from the devil" appears by itself, too.

I vaguely remembered some link between "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" and "Indication," but I had to do some research to find where I'd learned this.  It's in Claes Johansen's Hung up on a Dream.  On page 149, Argent says, "We used to do a Jimmy Reed song on stage, a blues thing called 'Baby What You Want Me To Do'.  At the end of that I used to go into this long improvisation based around 'God Rest You Merry Gentlemen'!  It was quite bizarre.  I even used to start singing along with the improvisation.  It got quite wild.  We wanted to use that on a record.  So that's what we did on 'Indication', with a guitar sound that was supposed to be really out in the background.  It was supposed to be this thing we used to do on stage and which went down a storm."  Argent quotes "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" in the version of "Indication" on Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London (starting at ~2:13) and in the live recording of "I Am the Dance of Ages" from the Paris Theatre on 14 December 1972* (at ~23:39 in the audio file).

While there is a lyrical similarity between "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" and "Music from the Spheres" and Argent was obviously familiar with it, it's only speculation that it was an influence here.

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*I found this concert in June 2022.  The link I posted then doesn't work anymore, but the link above leads to the same recording.  As I explained two years ago, I think the date given (6 January 1973) is wrong.  In researching for this post, I also discovered that I had the title wrong there; it's "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen," not "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

I had some old notes on "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and in looking at the song again, I found a few more features to write about.  The Zombies recorded two versions of the song for the BBC.  I'm more familiar with the first (recorded for Saturday Club on 20 September 1965) because it appears on both Zombie Heaven and The BBC Radio Sessions.  The second version (recorded for The Beat Show on 8 November 1965) appears only on The BBC Radio Sessions.  My comments below are based on the first version, with a couple footnotes on significant differences in the second.

In the line "You give your love so sweetly," the phrase "so sweetly" is sung with melismas (F# E | F# E E), giving a sense of degree, and in the line "Is this a lasting treasure," the phrase "lasting treasure" is sung with melismas (B A C# B | C# B B, I think*), lending something of a sense of the durative nature of "lasting."

In the line "When I can feel the magic of your sighs"**, "sighs" is sung with a descending melisma (A G# F#), providing the impression of a sigh.

Of these features, the Shirelles' version (in C major rather than the Zombies' A major) has just a melisma'd "treasure" (E D D) and "sighs" (C A).

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*The second version has a melisma here, too, but it's more complex.

**In the second version, this line is "Well, I recall the magic of your sighs," although in the Shirelles' version, it's "Can I believe the magic of your sighs?"

"Sitting in the Park"

"Sitting in the Park" doesn't resolve, and this matches the theme of the lyrics.  In the same way that the narrator is left "waiting for you," the listener is left waiting for a musical resolution.

"She's Coming Home"

I listened to The BBC Radio Sessions at the end of August and noticed some features that I'm finally getting around to writing about.

The second verse of "She's Coming Home" ("Oh, baby, baby, baby, I'll be good to you...") has softer dynamics than the first verse ("I saw her walking out the other day..."), and this matches the description "gentle" in the line "Our love was such a sweet and gentle thing."

This is also true of the studio version, but the BBC version actually has a greater change in the dynamics.

"Never Get over You"

I listened to Still Got That Hunger to-day (because it was released to-day in 2015), and I noticed a small feature in "Never Get over You."  In the line "Not after all this time," the phrase "all this time" is sung to notes of all different pitches (C D F), giving a sense of that entirety.

I referenced Colin Blunstone's solo version ("Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" on The Ghost of You and Me) and discovered that this feature is there, too, but because that version is in a different key, the specific pitches are different (E F# A).

"Indication"

Recently, I heard a clip of the beginning of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (quoted in Garth Hudson's improvisation "The Genetic Method"), and I realized that the final phrase in "Indication" has the same sort of musical vocabulary.

The bass register is something like this (played with a ritardando):

And here's the beginning of Bach's toccata:

[source]

In both, there's a diatonic descent followed by an accidental on the seventh degree of the scale (G# in the A minor of "Indication" and C# in the D minor of Bach's toccata).  This accidental is also at or near the end of the phrase and played with a longer note value than the preceding notes.

There's a definite similarity here, and Rod Argent sometimes mentions Bach (in the liner notes for Classically Speaking, he wrote, "And I've always loved Bach!" and in a 2009 BBC radio segment, he called Bach "without any question, the greatest musician who ever lived"), but of course, it's just speculation on my part that this is an instance of Bach's influence.

For what it's worth:  in the live version of "Hold Your Head Up" from the Zombies' concert at Abbey Road, Argent even plays part of the fugue that follows this toccata. 

"It's Alright with Me"

I watched the Zombies concert from Abbey Road on its anniversary on the 18th, and at some point since then, I had the notion that there's some similarity between "It's Alright with Me" and "I Want You Back Again."  The lyrics of the two songs don't have much in common, though (both rhyme "on my own" with "alone"); maybe the similarity I was thinking of is just that both songs are in C minor.*  In any case, as I was looking at the lyrics of "It's Alright with Me," I noticed some significance in the structure.

The couplet "But if you want to stay around and love me / You know it's alright with me" recurs at the end of each verse, providing a sense of the constancy of "stay[ing] around."

The rhyme scheme of the verses is AABB (if rhyming "me" with itself counts), but in the bridge, this is replaced with ABA ("I'm sick and tired of being on my own / But you know I'll take nobody / Who's gonna leave me tired and alone").  Unlike in the verses, the sequential lines don't rhyme, so there's a sense of the isolation of "being on my own."

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*As I've noted before, though, the version of "I Want You Back Again" on Still Got That Hunger is in D minor.

"Different Game"

I haven't written about any of the songs on Different Game yet because, like I did with Still Got That Hunger, I want to enjoy simply listening to the album for a while before I start analyzing the songs.  Yester-day, though, I watched the performance of "Different Game" from the concert at Abbey Road Studios, and I noticed a small point.  In the line "Such a different game" in the choruses, "different" is sung with three syllables rather than just two, lending a sense of degree (for "such").

Earlier in the song, in the line "God knows life seemed such a different game" in the verse, "different" is sung with only two syllables, so even within the song, the articulation shifts, and this change highlights the word's meaning.

"It's Alright with Me"

I was thinking about "It's Alright with Me" yester-day and realized that the line "I got a leak in my bucket and a great big hole in my floor" contains a sort of merism.  The "leak in my bucket" implies a small hole, and this contrasts with the "great big hole."  Naming these two opposites indicates the variety or range of ways in which the narrator is "a man that's poor."

"Thunder and Lightning" b/w "The Coming of Kohoutek"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (2 September 1974), Argent's "Thunder and Lightning" (edited) b/w "The Coming of Kohoutek" (Epic 8-50025) was released in the U.S. and Canada.  This seems to be the last single Argent released in these countries; Russo doesn't list any more.

"The Tracks of My Tears"

I recently listened to Colin Blunstone's Collected (for only the fourth time), specifically to hear his version of "The Tracks of My Tears" and see if it has the same features that I'd noticed in the original by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.

At the end of the bridge, there's the line "My smile is my makeup I wear since my break up with you," sung to a melody something like this:

(Blunstone's version is even in the same key as the original, so I could re-use my notation excerpt from my post on how this line may have influenced the keyboard solo in an alternate take of the Zombies' "Nothing's Changed.")

After the initial D note, the melody repeats the same triplet until the phrase "break up with you," at which point it diverges.  These changes in the repeated sequence of pitches and in the rhythm musically illustrate that "break."

Because I've commented on Shakespeare references in other Zombies and Colin Blunstone songs, I feel I should mention that the idea of "the tracks of my tears" is basically the same as "With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks" in King Lear (I.iv.292), although this seems to be just coincidental.  In this video (starting at ~10:16), Smokey Robinson talks about the song a bit, including how he came up with the title phrase.

For what it's worth:  these features are also in the version by the Roulettes (a band that Russ Ballard and Robert Henrit were in before Argent), although that's a whole step lower, in F major.

Encore

I watched the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night yester-day (partially because this month marks its sixtieth anniversary), and it gave me an opportunity to write about something I'd realized last year but forgot to write about here.

The cover of Argent's Encore shows a number of film strips of various shots of the group playing live:

This is the same basic idea as one scene during the press conference in A Hard Day's Night where a photographer takes multiple pictures of George Harrison as he makes various faces and the movie shows the resulting film strips:

I don't know if this was the intent for Encore, but there's certainly a resemblance between the album cover and this shot in A Hard Day's Night.

When I was thinking about this again yester-day, I realized that the back cover of the Zombies' I Love You album uses this idea, too.  Here's a scan of the CD booklet (in which the back cover of the record sleeve has become the inside back cover), showing the group playing live on a television show in Sweden in November 1966:

According to the liner notes of the CD, this compilation album was originally released only in continental Europe and Japan since "Decca's affiliates in other countries were aware of the band's status and the need for a second long player, but the band apparently lacked the necessary profile at home to be taken seriously by the label."  Because of these circumstances, I doubt that the Zombies themselves had any input in the design of the album cover, but the similarity to the shot in A Hard Day's Night still seems to point to the Beatles' influence.

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For what it's worth, here's a post about the cover of Begin Here, which also seems to indicate a Beatle influence, and here's an-other post about the front and back covers of I Love You, where I detail some investigation I did on these pictures.

"Nothing's Changed"

Yester-day, I was thinking about Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "The Tracks of My Tears," specifically the line "My smile is my makeup I wear since my break up with you" at the end of the bridge, which is sung to a melody something like this:

I realized that there are some similarities between this and the keyboard solo (Hohner Pianet + Vox Continental) in the alternate take of "Nothing's Changed" (track 15 on disc 3 of Zombie Heaven), which is something like this:

Both consist primarily of a repeated set of descending triplets (although the intervals in the two parts aren't the same), and both start with an eighth note pick up and an ascending fourth.

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes (p. 52), the Zombies performed "The Tracks of My Tears" live, so it's possible that the melody and rhythm of the vocal part here had something to do with Rod Argent's keyboard solo in "Nothing's Changed," even if merely subconsciously.

"So Much More"

This is just a minor point, but the line "Ev'ry night and ev'ry day" in "So Much More" contains a temporal merism.

Also, this is my 1,000th post on this blog.

"The Best Is Yet to Come"

I listened to Colin Blunstone's On the Air Tonight last week and noticed a handful of small features.

In the line "You say the words that help me carry on" in "The Best Is Yet to Come," "on" is sung with a melisma (A E G), giving a sense of that continuation.

In the line "'Cause it's hard, but it's the same for ev'ryone," "ev'ryone" is sung with a melisma, giving a sense of breadth.  Initially (at ~0:41 and ~1:44), it's A G A B, but later in the song (at ~2:56), it's E F# E B C# B.

In the line "When ev'rything is wrong, hold on," the three syllables of "ev'rything" are all sung to different pitches (C B A), providing a sense of that breadth.

"This Is Your Captain Calling"

I was thinking about Colin Blunstone's "This Is Your Captain Calling" recently and noticed a handful of features, all in the first iteration of the chorus:

This is your captain calling

This is your captain calling

To tell you I'm out of my brain again

This is your captain calling

And if you think we're falling

You're perfectly right

And I'd be delighted if any of you

Could give us a hand and land the plane

In the line "And if you think we're falling," "falling" is sung to a descending pair of notes, providing a sense of its meaning.  It's only a small interval (a whole step:  F# to E), but it's somewhat conspicuous because up to that point, the melody ascends and holds steady ("And if you think we're" is sung to the notes C# D E F# F#)

In the line "And I'd be delighted if any of you," the phrase "any of you" is sung to notes of all different pitches (A G# F# E), giving a sense of the breadth of "any."

The line "Could give us a hand and land the plane" exhibits internal rhyme ("hand" and "land"), hinting at the stability that would result from "land[ing] the plane."

"Sanctuary"

When I watched the Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London DVD a couple days ago, I also noticed an ambiguity in the lyrics of "Sanctuary," specifically in the line "When all around seems to be trouble."  It could be parsed in two different ways:  either "all" as the subject and "trouble" as a predicate adjective or "all around" as an adverbial phrase (modifying "seems to be") and "trouble" as the subject (with the structure inverted, rather than the more prosaic "When trouble seems to be all around").

"I Love You"

When I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology back in September, I thought there was an ambiguity in the lines "I shouldn't hide / My love deep inside" in "I Love You."  Yester-day, I watched the Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London DVD (because according to Russo's Collector's Guide, the concert was recorded on 6 June 2003), and I finally sussed it out:  "deep inside" could function adverbially (modifying "hide," describing where to hide this love) or as a post-positive adjectival phrase (modifying "love," indicating the degree to which the narrator feels this emotion).  Admittedly, the first seems more likely.

"A Man for All Reasons"

I listened to Argent's Nexus a couple days ago to mark the U.S. release of the "A Man for All Reasons" b/w "Music of the Spheres" single, and I remembered something that I noticed about "A Man for All Reasons" when I listened to the album back in April, although I think I'd been dimly aware of this even before then.  There are changes in the dynamics to represent the lines "And again, there's the man of war" (played forte for bellicosity) and "And again, there's the man of peace" (played piano for tranquility), and of course, these opposite dynamics also mirror the difference between "war" and "peace."

"Trapeze"

I was thinking about "Trapeze" yester-day, and I realized that in the section

Flying, sighing headlong into dread
Hoping, praying I'll find the path to tread

the phrase "headlong into dread" is sung to a descending melody (Bb A G F# D), musically illustrating this sensation.  In other words, it mirrors that "sinking feeling."

"A Man for All Reasons" b/w "Music from the Spheres"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (3 June 1974), Argent's "A Man for All Reasons" (edited) b/w "Music from the Spheres" (Epic 5-11137) was released in the U.S. and Canada.  The U.K. release (Epic S EPC 2448) was on 14 June, coincidentally Rod Argent's birthday.

"The Ring"

I listened to Argent's Circus this morning and started wondering about the effects on "The Ring" again.  I've long suspected that at least one of the effects is ring modulation, although I can't find anything to confirm this.  If this is the case, though, the title has a dual meaning:  there's "ring" in the sense of ring modulation, and there's also "ring" in the sense of circus ring, in keeping with the album's theme.

"It's Magical" b/w "Summersong"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (24 May 1974), Colin Blunstone's "It's Magical" b/w "Summersong" (Epic S EPC 2413) was released in the U.K.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

I listened to Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique yester-day, and afterwards, I was thinking about "Dies Irae," which is quoted in the last movement.  A loose quotation of it also appears at the beginning of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek," and I realized that its placement at the beginning of the three linked songs that start the Nexus album ("The Coming of Kohoutek," "Once Around the Sun," and "Infinite Wanderer") has some significance and is appropriate for this context.  As Rod Argent explains in this interview,  "the comet [Kohoutek] was heralded as being potentially one of the most spectacular events to occur in the sky for many years.  In the far past, spectacular comet visitations had been linked to all sorts of prophesies of doom and destruction, and I included a very famous musical theme - the Dies Irae, (Day of Wrath), written in the 13th century."  Obviously, the theme heralding the "Day of Wrath" precedes the event that it announces, and likewise, Argent's quotation of the tune comes first in the song.

"The Sun Will Rise Again"

I listened to Colin Blunstone's new Less Is More EP yester-day, and I noticed a small feature in "The Sun Will Rise Again."  In the line "Ev'rything must change," the three syllables of "Ev'rything" are all sung to different pitches, giving a sense of that entirety.  I referenced the versions on The Ghost of You and Me and Different Game, and in both, the pitches are G F# D.

"Care of Cell 44"

Last month, I wrote a post pointing out the similarities between "Care of Cell 44" and the Everly Brothers' "Take a Message to Mary," although I think these similarities are probably just coincidental.  I've been fleshing out some old notes on Ray Charles songs lately, and yester-day I realized that his "Funny (But I Still Love You)" could fall into the same category.  Rod Argent occasionally mentions Charles as an influence (especially for "Edge of the Rainbow," as in this interview at ~57:22, although that's a much more recent example), but I don't know if he was familiar with this particular song.  In any case, like "Care of Cell 44," it's an epistolary song; the first lines are "My dear sweetheart, I'm writing you / Just a few lines to tell you that I'm blue."  I think that's about as far as the similarities go, but it could have been an influence, even if a minor or subconscious one.

"Taking the Wings from Butterflies"

I've been re-reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream again, and last week, I ran across the phrase "pluck the wings from painted butterflies" (III.i.156), which reminded me of the Chris White Experience song "Taking the Wings from Butterflies" (on Volume One).  While the phrases are basically the same, I don't know if this similarity is anything more than a coincidence.  Still, I thought I'd note it.

I haven't decided to what degree I'm going to include the Chris White Experience songs here, but this one has a stronger Zombies connection than some since it was recorded during the sessions for the New World album.

"Breathe Out, Breathe In"

This morning, I watched this Zombies concert from eleven years ago to-day.  Later, I was thinking about "Breathe Out, Breathe In," and I realized that the first line ("The city's sitting pretty") exhibits both consonance ("The city's sitting pretty") and assonance ("The city's sitting pretty") and that this euphony matches and perhaps even helps evoke the description "pretty."

Miscellaneous Observations

A couple days ago, I watched a video of the Zombies performing "This Old Heart of Mine" live in France in 1966.  Rod is glimpsed only briefly in the video, but I noticed that the shirt he's wearing seems to be the same one he's wearing on the cover of the I Love You album.  There's a slightly better view of him in the video for "Goin' to a Go Go" from the same appearance:

Here's the cover of I Love You:

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Chris White says, "We did the Emperor Rosko TV show, 'Dents De Lait Dents De Loups,' in Paris, with Sylvie Vartan and Marianne Faithfull," and the chronology explains that the Zombies were in Paris on 29 and 30 October 1966.  A number of years ago, I did some research (detailed here) and determined that the picture on the cover of I Love You was taken sometime between 5 and 20 November 1966 in Sweden.  (About seven months after I wrote that post, I found this video in which Rod and Colin mention that the picture was taken in Sweden.)  So the videos in the links above and the I Love You album cover are only a few weeks apart at the most.

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Yester-day, I listened to Colin's Journey album because it was the fiftieth anniversary of its U.K. release, and I realized that the title may be a nod to Odessey and Oracle since journey and odyssey are synonyms.

Journey

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (23 February 1974), Colin Blunstone's Journey (Epic S EPC 65805) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. release (Epic KE 32962) was on 26 August.

Also released on 23 February 1974 was the single "Weak for You" (edited) b/w "Keep the Curtains Closed Today" (Dut. Epic EPC 2132), apparently a Dutch only release.

Nexus

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (22 February 1974), Argent's Nexus (Epic S EPC 65924) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. release (Epic KE 32573) was on 22 April.

Also released on 22 February 1974 was the single "Thunder and Lightning" (edited) b/w "Keeper of the Flame" (Epic S EPC 2147).

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

I was thinking about "I Want Her She Wants Me" last week, and I realized that one section of the bass part at the beginning of the song is similar to a section of the bass part in "Summertime."

Notating the bass part in the introduction to "I Want Her She Wants Me" is still beyond me, but the first few phrases fit nicely in 3/4 (the majority of the song is in 4/4, though):

where the first G in each measure is a hammer-on.

In "Summertime," there are some very similar phrases, first occurring at ~0:23, under the "high" of "and the cotton is high":

where the first E in each measure is a hammer-on.

The interval between the two pitches in "I Want Her She Wants Me" is a half-step, and the interval between the two pitches in "Summertime" is a whole step, but otherwise, these figures are the same.  In both songs, the figure also occurs three times in succession.

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This similarity between the bass parts reminded me of a similarity between the backing vocals that I noted years ago.  I revisited the parts and improved my accuracy, but I'm still not sure I have everything note-perfect.

The backing vocal in "Summertime" is something like:

It's a bit different the second time.  Instead of just E F# in the last line, the E F# G# F# figure is repeated.

The backing vocals in "I Want Her She Wants Me" are something like:

Common to both is the sequence E F# G(#) F# in fairly even note values.

"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" a couple days ago, and I realized that it has some similarity with the Everly Brothers' "Take a Message to Mary."  Both songs are about someone in prison and a letter or message either to or from that person ("Writing this letter hoping you're OK" in "Care of Cell 44" and the recurring title phrase in "Take a Message to Mary").

While the Everly Brothers did have some influence on the Zombies, I think this similarity is probably a coincidence.  In this interview (starting at ~32:37), Rod Argent talks about how he wrote the song, specifically how it changed as he was writing it:  "I just started out one day with the phrase, and I thought, you know, I started writing a love song really:  'Good morning to you; I hope you're feeling better, baby / Thinking of me while you are far away,' and then I thought, 'Well, why is she far away?' and then I thought, 'Well, let's not do the normal cliché; let's imagine a situation, you know, that's got some, uh, a little bit of bite to it,' and then I just imagined this thing...."  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, he comments, "There was no inspiration behind it really."  If the Everly Brothers' song was an influence, it seems like it was only a subconscious one.  Still, I thought I'd note it.

"To Julia (For When She Smiles)"

When I listened to Into the Afterlife a couple days ago, I also had a small realization about "To Julia (For When She Smiles)."  The reason that Julia was the name chosen for the song may be that it's related to July.  In any case, it's an appropriate name for the song's summertime setting. 

"I Could Spend the Day"

I listened to Into the Afterlife yester-day and noticed a couple things.  I'd previously noted the internal rhyme in one line of "I Could Spend the Day" ("deeper sleep"), but I realized the significance:  this extra rhyme (in addition to the normal line-ending rhymes) provides a sense of that greater degree, highlighting the comparative adjective.

"She Loves the Way They Love Her"

I was reviewing the bass part in the Into the Afterlife version of "She Loves the Way They Love Her" recently, and two days ago, I was thinking specifically about the line "Dreaming dreams of future time when she and me are all alone."  This may be just coincidental (the contexts are quite different), but a similar cognate accusative construction occurs in Joel 2:28, later cited in Acts 2:17:  "your old men shall dream dreams."

While verifying the lyrics yester-day, I also realized that since "lie" in the line "She loves ev'ry sweet-talkin' lie" is sung with a melisma (A E), there's a sense of number (for "ev'ry").