"Goin' out of My Head"

I recently listened to The BBC Radio Sessions and noticed a small (perhaps even trivial) difference between the live and studio versions of "Goin' out of My Head."

Twice in the studio version, there's this phrase (previously, I'd thought it was trumpet, but now I think it's French horn):

In the live version, Rod plays this phrase on Pianet, but he changes one note so that it's now:

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the studio version of "Goin' out of My Head" was recorded 23 October 1966.  The Decca Stereo Anthology liner notes confirm this, adding that the orchestral overdubs were "probably recorded at a later date."  I found conflicting dates for the live recording, though:  the Zombie Heaven liner notes say 1 November 1966, but The BBC Radio Sessions liner notes say 29 October.  According to Zombie Heaven, however, the Zombies were doing appearances in Paris on 29 and 30 October, which Colin alludes to in the interview with Brian Matthew that precedes the performance:  "We just had a very hectic weekend in France and Belgium, last weekend."  Colin also introduces the song by saying, "We're gonna record a song called 'I Think I'm Going out of My Head,' which was originally recorded by Little Anthony and the Imperials."  This comment would suggest that this live recording actually predates the studio version, although the dates provided don't align with this.

In examining the studio version of the song more closely, I found a couple more features to note.

During the line "I can't think of anything but you," the vocal harmonies come in and coincide with the "you" in the lead vocal.  In a way, they literally underscore the word, highlighting its importance for the narrator.

I finally did some more work on transcribing the bass part (after a lapse of about two years).  Under the line "I must think of a way into your heart," it's something like this:

The first measure consists of two triplets (this rhythm is also sung in the vocal part and played in the drum and trombone parts).  Because there are six notes (really a rest and five notes) forced into the space where there are usually only four, there's something of a sense of the narrator's determination ("I must").  Alternatively, this uncommon rhythm simply draws attention to the narrator's declaration.

"Who's That Knocking?"

"Who's That Knocking?" (written by Colin Blunstone and Alan Phillips) seems to borrow from Paul McCartney's "Let 'Em In" from a couple years earlier.*  The chorus of "Who's That Knocking?" starts with the lines "Who's that knockin' on my door? / Who's that ringin' on my bell?"  Much of McCartney's song consists of similar sentences but as statements instead of questions:  "Someone's knockin' at the door / Somebody's ringin' the bell."

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*According to Russo's Collector's Guide, "Who's That Knocking?" was first released as a U.K. B-side (to "Ain't It Funny") on 21 July 1978, and according to McCartney's website, "Let 'Em In" was released as a single on 22 July 1976, although it was also on Wings at the Speed of Sound, released on 25 March.

Never Even Thought

Because yester-day was Colin Blunstone's eightieth birthday, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Planes and Never Even Thought.  I noticed a few small points to write about, all in songs on Never Even Thought.

Initially, I noticed just that both "I'll Never Forget You" and "Do Magnolia Do" contain the phrase "all alone," and as I've noted before with other songs, since the two words begin with the same sound, there's a sense of that singularity.  When I transcribed some more of the lyrics, though, I discovered that the two songs have a number of similarities.  In both, this "all alone" comes at the end of the first line of the second verse and is rhymed with "telephone" in the following line.

"I'll Never Forget You":

I'll turn down the lights; I'm all alone

I lie here by the telephone

"Do Magnolia Do":

Tomorrow's stormy mornin', I'll probably wake up all alone

Nothin' but my mornin' and a quiet telephone

Because the phrase is in both songs (and with the same placement), it lends some cohesion to the album, and since "I'll Never Forget You" is the first song and "Do Magnolia Do" is the last, there's even a sort of book-ending effect.

"The Ghost of You and Me"

I was thinking about Colin Blunstone's "The Ghost of You and Me" recently and realized that the phrase "all these blues" in the first line ("What am I supposed to do with all these blues") is sung to notes of all different pitches (A B C).  While the span here is only a minor third, this articulation does give something of a sense of breadth or entirety.

"Circus"

While re-reading The Merchant of Venice recently, I found a passage that seems to be quoted (or at least referred to) in the lines "In the circus / Each must play a part" in Argent's "Circus."  In Act One, Scene One (lines 77-78), Antonio says, "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano: / A stage where every man must play a part."

"I Remember When I Loved Her"

Years ago, I wrote a post about "I Remember When I Loved Her," specifically that the archaic use of "strange" had precedent in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and that this connected to Rod Argent's comment about Shakespeare in Johansen's The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream (p. 30):  "The language spoke to me; it had an indefinable, spiritual quality."

I recently started re-reading The Merchant of Venice and found a passage in which "strange" is used in a sense closer to that in "I Remember When I Loved Her" than the one in Romeo and Juliet is.  In Act One, Scene One (roughly lines 66-68), Bassanio says to Salarino and Solanio, "Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?  Say, when?  You grow exceeding strange."

"Show Me the Way"

I listened to Breathe Out, Breathe In yester-day and noticed a small feature in "Show Me the Way."  In the lines "I'm sorry now / For all that I've done" (that's how they're formatted in the liner notes), the phrase "all that I've done" is sung to notes of all different pitches (spanning a fifth:  D C Bb G), giving a sense of this entirety.

"Be My Lover, Be My Friend"

Yester-day, I listened to Argent's performance at the Paris Theatre from 14 December 1972 and noticed that the line "You sounded so sweet" in "Be My Lover, Be My Friend" alliterates.  The repeated S provides a sense of degree, matching the adverb "so."

"Liar"

I watched Argent's appearance on Set of 6 yester-day (it's dated 29 May 1972, although Jim Rodford writes in his book Sideman [p. 177] that it was recorded in April), and I noticed some small features in the articulation of the vocal part in "Liar."  In referencing the studio recording to write this post, I found some more.

"Away" in the lines "Nothing you could do / That could turn me away" and "I won't move away" is sung with a melisma (Bb C Bb and Bb C Bb G, respectively), giving something of a sense of movement, although both are sort of negated.

The three syllables of "ev'ry word" in the line "Hanging on ev'ry word" are sung to all different pitches (F E D), lending a sense of number.

"All" in the lines "That's what you said / And I believed it all" is also sung with a melisma (C Bb G), here giving a sense of entirety, especially since these notes are all different pitches, too.

Finally, "go" in the line "I won't let you go" is sung with the same melisma (C Bb G), lending a sense of movement, although it seems to be used more metaphorically.

"Smokey Day"

Recently, I was thinking about "Smokey Day" and noticed some features in two of the lines.  In comparing the two versions (one sung by Rod Argent with backing by the band that would become Argent and one sung by Colin Blunstone on his One Year album), I discovered that there are slight differences in the two lines I was considering.  In the pre-Argent version, the lines are "Dulcet vesper voices / Calling gently for the night," sung to a melody something like:

but in the Colin Blunstone version, the lines are "Dulcet vesper voices / Calling gently through the night," sung to a melody something like:

These are small differences, but I'd never noticed them.

All of the words in the line "Dulcet vesper voices" come from Latin (dulcis, vespere, and vox [gen. vocis]), so there's a sort of linguistic coherence to the line.  Additionally, each word is two syllables (although Blunstone sings "vesper" with a melisma, so it has three syllables), and the first syllable of each word falls on a downbeat, so there's a sense of balance.

The line "Calling gently for/through the night" is sung to a melody that, despite some accidentals, is entirely conjunct (just three pitches: D#, C#, and C), and these small intervals match the adverb "gently."  (It's the same feature that I recently noted in "Hung up on a Dream.")

"Hung up on a Dream"

A few months ago, I was thinking about the shape of the vocal melody in "Hung up on a Dream," specifically for the lines "They spoke with soft, persuading words" and "Which gently touched my aching mind."  Each is sung to a melody something like this:

It's an entirely conjunct phrase, and the small intervals match the "soft" and "gently" in the lyrics.

"The Fakir"

I should preface this post with some background.  As far as I know, Argent played "The Fakir" only in live performances and never recorded a studio version.  I have three live recordings:  John Peel's Sunday Concert (14 February 1971), The Paris Theatre, London (14 December 1972), and The Palace Theatre (7 November 1973).  In introducing the piece, Peel comments, "This is, uh, actually not a group composition; it's a Don Ellis thing, arranged by Jim Rodford.  Uh, it's called 'Fakir.'"  At the Paris Theatre concert, Russ Ballard introduces it and remarks that "it's a thing that features our drummer; it's the one and only number that features him," and in his book Banging On!, Robert Henrit explains that "The Fakir" was basically his drum solo (pages 76 and 84).

There's a section in the Paris Theatre version where Henrit beats out a rhythm on the bass drum and simultaneously yells some indistinct words off-mic.  Recently, I discovered what he's quoting here.  A couple weeks ago, I watched the Marx Brothers movie A Night in Casablanca, in which Chico plays the tune on piano and introduces it as "Beer Barrel Polka."  According to this site, it's originally a Czech song called "Škoda lásky," which has many titles and lyrics in different countries.  In English-speaking countries, it's also known as "Roll out the Barrel," and these seem to be the words that Henrit is shouting.

(For what it's worth:  I'm most familiar with the tune as "Böhmische Polka" by Albert Vossen und Seine Solisten.)

"I Know She Will"

Earlier this month, I listened to a three-disc set of the Shadows because in Platts' Times and Seasons, I read the story about an early Zombies gig where Paul Arnold played the bass solo in the Shadows' "Nivram" note-perfectly but on the wrong fret (recalled by Colin Blunstone on pages 29-30), and I discovered that there's a very strong similarity between the introductions of the Shadows' "Blue Star" and the Zombies' "I Know She Will."  Both begin with an arpeggiation of the second inversion of A major (although the one in "I Know She Will" is two octaves lower than that in "Blue Star"), and while they have the same rhythm, it falls in different places in the measure ("I Know She Will" has some additional notes in a higher register, too).  The two introductions also simply alternate between two figures (excepting the triads in the higher register in "I Know She Will").

Here are the two parts in notation:

"Blue Star":

"I Know She Will" (I put the triads on a separate staff so the other notes are easier to compare with "Blue Star"):

While there's a definite similarity between these two introductions, it may be just coincidence.  "I Know She Will" was written by Chris White, and I haven't found any link between him and the Shadows.  He joined the band as Paul Arnold's replacement, so he obviously wasn't around for this version of "Nivram," and while Paul Atkinson notes (on page 12 in the Zombie Heaven liner notes and on page 47 in Claes Johansen's Hung up on a Dream) that the Zombies played other Shadows tunes, it's unclear whether White was part of the band then.

The Influence of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog"

Last month, I got and started reading Robin Platts' Times and Seasons: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Zombies.  I decided to listen to what musical pieces are mentioned in the book (provided I have them), and the first album I listened to was Elvis 56, specifically for "Hound Dog," whose effect on a young Rod Argent is discussed at some length on the first two pages of the book.  (Incidentally:  I got Elvis 56 a number of years ago because Rod mentioned it specifically in this video from Amoeba Music).  I think I'd previously noticed that the bass part in "Hound Dog" has a dotted rhythm, but the particular context in which I'd listened to it this time made me realize that it may have influenced the rhythm that's present in a number of Zombie bass parts, which - as Rod briefly explains in the BBC Mastertapes program (at ~20:28 in the A-Side) - he often used to write for his own songs.

The bass part in "Hound Dog" varies a little bit from verse to verse, but it's something like this:

While the tonality is different, many bass parts in Zombies songs also have this sort of dotted rhythm.  For example, here's the bass part in the verses of "I'll Keep Trying":

(There are a couple measures in the chorus that I'm a bit unsure about, but otherwise, the entire bass part in "I'll Keep Trying" exhibits this initial pair of dotted quarter notes in each measure, save for the last bar.)

The bass part in the verses of "If It Don't Work Out" also has this rhythm for all but the last two measures, but since there are nine consecutive measures of nothing but D notes, I felt an excerpt of the notation wouldn't be very helpful in illustrating my point.

More often, however, there's a slight difference in the rhythm in that this single quarter note is replaced by a pair of eighth notes, which sometimes precedes the dotted quarter notes and acts as a pick-up.

For example, the beginning of "Whenever You're Ready":

The beginning of "Time of the Season":

And the verse in "Tell Her No":

(These parts may show the influence of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" more than Elvis's "Hound Dog," though.  As I pointed out before, albeit imperfectly, so I won't link to it, these bass parts share the same rhythm and the same tonality as "Stand by Me":  root, fifth, and seventh.)

"Her Song"

I was thinking about "Her Song" yester-day and noticed a couple features in the lyrics.

The lines "And in the light there I can see / A sleepyhead so close to me" could be understood in two different ways.  "So close to me" seems to be meant primarily literally (in physical proximity), but it could also be taken more metaphorically (in the sense of a deep emotional attachment).

In the line "And ev'rything I have is nothing if it can't belong to you," there's a copulative clause that can be simplified to "ev'rything is nothing."  Because the subject and the predicate nominative have similar forms (both end in "-thing"), there's a sense of balance between the two halves (despite the opposite meanings of "ev'rything" and "nothing"), and consequently, there's a sense of precision in the sentiment.

"Hold Your Head Up"

According to Jim Rodford's Sideman (p. 186), fifty years ago to-day (13 April 1975), Argent performed a concert at the Roundhouse London.  "The titles of the album tracks [on Circus] relate to various circus acts, and we rehearsed the whole album with these acts devising their routines around us."

Last year, the Reelin' in the Years archive posted a video of Argent performing "Hold Your Head Up," and while the date given is 1974, I think it's actually from this 1975 concert that Rodford details.  There are a number of circus acts around the band, and it seems unlikely that there would be a second occurrence of such an extravagent show.

"It's Only Money, Pt. 1"

When I was looking at the lyrics of "It's Only Money, Pt. 1" recently in order to compare them to a line in "The Jester," I noticed that there's anaphora in the lines "Pay the butcher; pay the baker / Pay the taxman; pay me later."  This repetition illustrates the frequency and number of payments that must be made.  Additionally, the first three of these clauses are sung to nearly the same melody (the pitches are the same [D E G E], but the rhythm differs a bit), highlighting this effect.

"The Jester"

In "The Jester," there's the line "It is within your fortune lies," and perhaps just coincidentally, this bears some resemblance to a sentiment in Argent's earlier "It's Only Money" (both parts):  "It's not what's at the door / But the money you have in your soul."

"Highwire"

I listened to Argent's Circus yester-day to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its U.K. release, and for the first time, I noticed an allusion in "Highwire."  About halfway through the song, there's the line "With amazing grace and sweet sensation captured by the high flier," which seems to contain a nod to the spiritual "Amazing Grace" ("Amazing grace - how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me!").  I find some of the singing on Circus hard to understand; otherwise, I'm sure I would have discovered this reference earlier.

Circus

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (4 April 1975), Argent's Circus (Epic S EPC 80691) was released in the U.K.  The U.S. and Canada release (Epic PE 33422) had been on 10 March 1975.

"Brief Candles"

I was thinking about "Brief Candles" this morning and had a realization about the coda.  In the stereo mix, the piano (along with the bass) is in the left channel, and the right channel contains merely its reverb.  This particular distribution of the sound creates a sense of space, and consequently, the isolated position of the instruments is emphasized.  This sort of separation matches the solitude of the characters in the lyrics ("She only needs to be alone" in the first verse and "He's alone" in the second).

"Her Song"

When I watched the Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} concert, I noticed a similarity between "Her Song" and the Beatles' "Because."  "Her Song" has the recurring clause "You are love to me," which is the same sentiment as "love is you" in "Because," simply inverted.  "Because" predates "Her Song" by only a couple years, but I suspect that this similarity is just a coincidence, not a conscious echo.  Still, I thought I'd note it.

Odessey and Oracle

Yester-day was the anniversary of the concert that was recorded for the Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} CD and DVD (on 8 March 2008), so I watched it again.  In the original album liner notes, there's a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest:

Be not afraid;

The Isle is full of noises

Sound, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices

Caliban says this to Stephano and Trinculo in Act 3, Scene 2 (roughly lines 131-134), although in the two editions of the play that I have, it's formatted a bit differently:

Be not afeard.  The isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again

I recently re-read The Tempest and noticed a detail that, purely coincidentally, is related to this 40th anniversary concert version of "Butcher's Tale."  During the concert, Rod comments on the "1896 Victorian pedal organ similar to the one [used on the original recording] that Chris gave away many years ago and I had to go searching for for these concerts."  In a few shots, it can be seen that the organ was made by the Clarabella Organ Co.:

In The Tempest, Alonso's daughter (who's merely mentioned in the play, at II.i.68, 240, 253, and V.i.209) is named Claribel, which is just a slightly different form of Clarabella.

In re-reading The Tempest, I also noticed that the word oracle appears a couple times.  At the beginning of Act 4, Scene 1, after Prospero tells Ferdinand that Miranda "will outstrip all praise," Ferdinand replies, "I do believe it / Against an oracle" (lines 11-12), and in Act 5, Scene 1, Alonso, reflecting on his experience on the island, says,

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod,

And there is in this business more than nature

Was ever conduct of.  Some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.  (lines 242-245)

Caliban's lines are quoted in the liner notes, so maybe one of these instances of oracle had something to do with the album's title.

The title also seems to reference the Greek epic poem The Odyssey, and it occurred to me that The Odyssey and The Tempest both deal with maritime voyages (although most of The Tempest occurs after a shipwreck).

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For what it's worth:  on Rod's birthday a couple years ago, the Zombies' social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram) posted an old picture of him at an organ, and this seems to be the original "Butcher's Tale" organ.

"Moving On"

In The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, I recently read about "Moving On."  Rod comments specifically on the line "What doesn't kill me will fill me with life," and I realized that because this line features internal rhyme, there's a sense of that abundance of being "fill[ed]."

As Far As I Can See

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how the cover of Begin Here bears some resemblance to the cover of With the Beatles.  In both, the band members' faces are lit primarily from one side.

I recently started reading the final section of The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images where As Far As I Can See is referred to (but not actually named; the book just says that the Zombies "released an album of new material in 2004"), and I realized that the cover of As Far As I Can See is even more similar to With the Beatles than Begin Here is.  The cover is in black and white (aside from the O in "The Zombies," which features a bit of the Odessey and Oracle cover art), and the contrast in the lighting is more extreme so that - like the Beatles - only half of Rod's face is visible.

"Brief Candles"

I had an-other small realization while reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images.  As it's formatted in the book, the first verse of "Brief Candles" is:

There she sits, her hands are held

Tight around her glass

She only needs to be alone

She knows this mood will pass

To realise that she was strong

And he too weak to stay

And to realise that she is better off this way

I would have done it differently, but this formatting highlights a structural contrast between "she was strong" and "he too weak."  By itself, "he too weak" is just a phrase.  The preceding "she was strong" sets up an instance of ellipsis, and the verb is merely implied ("he [was] too weak").  "He too weak" needs "she was strong" in order to make sense (formally speaking, at least).  It can't stand on its own, and in a way, this dependence matches the person it describes.

"Beechwood Park"

I recently read about "Beechwood Park" in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images and realized that it's in the same category as the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in that it deals with a specific place from the writer's childhood.  In the book, Chris White says, "I had written that song when we were touring in the Philippines," and the Zombie Heaven liner notes explain that the Philippines tour was in March 1967.  "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were the Beatles' current release at the time (they were released as a double A-sided single in February 1967), so chronologically, it's possible that they inspired the basic subject matter of "Beechwood Park" (a look back at a childhood location).

"Maybe after He's Gone"

Yester-day, I read the lyrics for "Maybe after He's Gone" in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images and noticed a couple features in it.

From verse to verse, there's progressively less of "she," which illustrates her leaving.  She's there at the beginning ("She told me she loved me"); by the second verse, she herself is gone, and there are just vestiges of her left ("Her smile, her tears are part of me"); and by the third verse, the narrator is by himself ("I'm on my own... I'm alone").

I also realized that "Maybe after He's Gone" starts very similarly to the second and third verses of "Tell Her No."  The first line of "Maybe after He's Gone" is "She told me she loved me," which is only slightly different from "And if she should tell you, 'I love you'" and "If she tells you, 'I love you'" in "Tell Her No."

"A Rose for Emily"

In The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, I recently read about "A Rose for Emily."  Hugh comments that "Rod was quite right in his arrangement of this very beautiful song."  This made me realize that, instrumentally, "A Rose for Emily" is the sparsest song on Odessey and Oracle (the only instrument on it is piano).  I also realized that, in a way, this relative lack of instrumentation (compared to the rest of the album or even just to the preceding and following songs) matches some of the lyrics, particularly "not a rose for Emily" and "none for you."

"I Love You"

I'm currently re-reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images.  Recently, I read about "I Love You," and I realized that in one spot, the construction of the lyrics matches the meaning.

As it's formatted in the book, one section is:

If I could find the words in my mind

The words should explain, but the words won't come

If you could see what you mean to me

My words should explain, but the words won't come

Semantically, the line "If you could see what you mean to me" seems isolated.  ("My words should explain" follows it sequentially but not logically since the explaining words would precede the knowledge of "what you mean to me.")  The line is a protasis without an accompanying apodosis, so even in the construction here, there's a lack of words ("the words won't come").

"Trapeze"

I listened to Argent's Circus this morning and noticed a small feature in "Trapeze."  After the line "Freefall vision dragging me down," there's a descending phrase played on Moog (taking special advantage of the pitch glide), giving a sense of that "dragging... down."