Yes, I did just do a version of this two days ago, but I had the house to myself for a few hours to-day, so I did the vocals! I even tried one phrase in the harmony vocals, although one note in it sounds a bit dicey.
My voice is slightly more suited to this than most Zombies songs, which I think is because this is one that Rod Argent sang and his voice is lower than Colin Blunstone's (although still higher than mine).
I didn't bother with the tremolo pedal on the guitar phrases; I don't think it made too much of a difference.
I think it was last time I updated what I knew of "A Love That Never Was" I checked what the liner notes to Zombie Heaven had to say about it:
Rod Argent takes lead vocal on this charming mid-tempo ballad that employs several trademark Zombies' touches but unusually features little in the way of keyboards, until the very end.
I'd been totally oblivious that there were any keyboard parts in it at all, but after reading that, I did hear some at the end. They're faint though, so I'm not sure how accurate my version is. I also added them in the corresponding places earlier in the song (albeit an octave lower than at the end), along with the chromatic phrase hidden in the chords and an arpeggiated A major that I discovered in the bass part, which I'm still slowly progressing with.
I'm not super happy with my guitar tone in this, but there you go.
I figured this one would be a good one to do to-day, since it's Valentine's Day.
When I posted a new version of "A Love That Never Was," I checked the lyrics that I'd transcribed. I think the only change I had to make was "vague hallucinations." I'd heard it as "fake hallucinations" when I originally transcribed the lyrics. I'm actually not really sure which it is, but I'm leaning toward "vague hallucinations" now. It's not helpful that V & F and G & K sound sort of similar.
In any case, I also found more typical Zombie themes.
Memories: "Memories of a love that never was"
Crying: "No one needs to cry"
Dreams: "Living in a dream"
I haven't really looked into this very much yet, but I think the sun is also pretty prominent in the Zombies' lyrics, and there's a line about it in "A Love That Never Was" - "Weeping from the sun."
I really need to work on a lyrical concordance, and I'm slowly doing that by transcribing the lyrics of a song when I post a new version of it here, but it'll still take awhile.
A few months ago, I figured out that I was playing a wrong note in one of the arpeggios in "A Love That Never Was." Last night, I was playing around with it, and I think I've corrected it. I'd been playing it as F#, A, D#, F#, but I think it's actually F#, C, D#, A. As I'd been playing it wrongly, it was the top part of a B7, but if F#, C, D#, A are the constituent notes of a chord, I do not know what chord it is.
I used my tremolo pedal for some of the arpeggio parts in this, which I'm not sure is accurate, but I'm pretty sure there is some kind of guitar effect. I missed a note or two in transitioning between guitar parts, and some others aren't very clear, but this was the third or fourth take, so I just went with it.
Also, I discovered that the drumming pattern is similar to that on "She's Not There."
I've been sort of obsessed with chromatic phrases sneaked into songs lately, and I discovered an-other one last night. Provided I have the chords correct, there's a chromatic phrase from F# to B in the chords in "A Love That Never Was" - during the "and there is nothing there / no one needs to cry" part.
D major (D, F#, A)
D minor (D, F, A)
A major (A, C#, E)
B major (B, D#, F#)
B minor (B, D, F#)
A major (A, C#, E)
A minor (A, C, E)
E major (E, G#, B)
I'd noticed before that it was a weird chord progression, what with sequential changes from a major to a minor with the same root, but until last night, I'd never noticed that chromatic phrase hidden within the chords.
I've tried doing my own version of "A Love That Never Was" a few times, and I always got hung up on the first note of "Thinking of a love that never was." Or, as it appears in other instances, "Memories of a love that never was."
I figured out yester-day why that note is so difficult: it's a C and the rest of the song up to that point is in A major. That C is an accidental.
I didn't realize it until writing this post, but that C kind of throws out the key that Rod Argent had been using. In a way, that C transforms the song from A major to A minor - sort of the opposite of what Chris White does in "This Will Be Our Year." But the rest of "A Love That Never Was" doesn't really even follow A minor. Because, after that, the chord progression is weird. It's something like D Dm A / B Bm / A Am / E. And, to some degree, that constant key shifting musically illustrates the despair about the titular love that never was.
I've known the chords for "A Love That Never Was" for about a year, but I think I've finally figured out the specific notes played within those chords.
This is super rough, and I miss a lot of notes. After all, I just learned it to-day.
Also, even though in a previous post I said that I've encountered suspended chords in Zombies songs only around A majors, I play Esus2 and Esus4 in this. I'm not sure if that's actually in the guitar part, but playing it that way includes the same notes as the "ahs" in the vocal part.
