"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."