"Brief Candles"

I listened to Odessey and Oracle yester-day and noticed some significance in the structure of the line "Finds he needs her more because she's no more need for him" in "Brief Candles."  The words "needs," "more," "more," and "need" form a chiasm (since they're different parts of speech, however, it's not an exact correspondence).  That the order of the words is inverted from one half of the line to the next illustrates the complete opposites here.

Odessey and Oracle

Although there are still a few bits of it that I'm not sure about, I started notating the bass part for "Hung up on a Dream" last month.  In doing so, I discovered that there are some octave skips near the beginning of the instrumental section (at ~0:48), something like this:

I was thinking about this yester-day and realized that there are some characteristics of these phrases that also appear in the bass part during the choruses of "Brief Candles."  Here are the first four measures (repeated as the next four measures):

(I'm still not certain what key the song is in, but I put the notation in A major.  Also note that it's played an octave higher than notated.)

In both parts, there's a steady five-pitch descent (B A G F# E in "Hung up on a Dream" and A G F# F E in "Brief Candles") occasionally punctuated by a note an octave higher (in roughly the same place in the rhythm), and this sequence is played twice in succession (just four measures in "Hung up on a Dream" but eight in "Brief Candles").

This is yet an-other musical element that lends some cohesion to the Odessey and Oracle songs.

(For what it's worth:  I've previously written about musical similarities between "Brief Candles" and "Care of Cell 44" and between "Brief Candles" and "This Will Be Our Year.")

"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).

"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.

Odessey and Oracle

A couple days ago, I wrote out the bass part for "Brief Candles."  When I lookt at it again yester-day, I realized that the rhythm in the bridge is similar to the rhythm of the bass part in the bridge of "Care of Cell 44."

Here's the bridge in "Brief Candles":

I'm not sure what key the song is in, but I put the notation in A major.

Here's the bridge in "Care of Cell 44" (excepting the last measure):

In the bridge of "Care of Cell 44," some of the notes are tied across the bar lines, but otherwise, the two parts have mostly the same rhythm.  This similarity lends a bit of cohesion to Odessey and Oracle even though "Care of Cell 44" was written by Rod Argent and "Brief Candles" was written by Chris White.

Odessey and Oracle

Last night, I tried to figure out the piano in the verses of "Brief Candles."  I was unsuccessful at this, but I did end up learning the chords for the chorus.  After playing them over a few times and thinking that they were familiar, I realized that they're very similar to the chords in the verses of "This Will Be Our Year."

The chorus of "Brief Candles" is:

|: A major | A major 7 | D major | F major | E major :|

D major | A major

D major | B major

The verse of "This Will Be Our Year" is:

A major | C# minor | A major 7 | D major

F major | E major | D major | A major

All but a few of the chords in the chorus of "Brief Candles" are held for a full measure, but the chords in the verse of "This Will Be Our Year" are each held for half a measure.

The bass parts for these two sections play a similar descending line.  Simplified, it's something like A (G#) G F# F E D A.  "This Will Be Our Year" has that G# (under C# minor); "Brief Candles" doesn't.  The bass part in "Brief Candles" also goes on a bit longer (under D major and B major).

These two sections are different enough that they're distinct but similar enough to lend some cohesion to the songs on Odessey and Oracle.  It's worth noting that both were written by Chris White.

Odessey and Oracle

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (8 December 1967), the Zombies mixed the stereo versions of "This Will Be Our Year," "Care of Cell 44," and "Brief Candles."

"Care of Cell 44" and "Brief Candles"

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (6 September 1967) the Zombies mixed the mono versions of "Care of Cell 44" (still bearing the working title "Prison Song") and "Brief Candles."

"Care of Cell 44" and "Brief Candles"

According to the liner notes of both Zombie Heaven and the 50th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, fifty years ago to-day (16 August 1967), the Zombies recorded "Care of Cell 44" and "Brief Candles."  The Zombie Heaven liner notes are a bit more detailed, specifying that "Care of Cell 44" had the working title "Prison Song" and that recording for the two songs also took place the following day (17 August).

Although I can't seem to find it again (maybe I just imagined it), I vaguely recall an interview in which Chris White said that the Zombies recorded the backing tracks for some of the Odessey and Oracle songs on one day and the vocal tracks on the next.  I'm assuming that's the case here: the backing tracks were recorded on 16 August and the vocal tracks on 17 August.

Odessey and Oracle

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When I wrote this post about the Picardy third in "Time of the Season," I was dimly conscious of the Picardy third in "Butcher's Tale," but then I got thinking about them some more and I realized that they're pretty similar in that the Picardy third comes at the end of a section, and that section is just repeated to make up the song.  (This might not be strictly true of "Time of the Season" because that section changes a bit for the organ solos.  The basis is fairly similar, but I don't think that Picardy third is there because there aren't any vocals.)  In any case, those similar structures are an-other feature that gives the album a coherence.

Also, because I'd been oblivious to that Picardy third for so long, I thought, "What other things am I missing!?"  So I was thinking about the album and looking at the lyrics, and I discovered something about "Brief Candles."

There's a great feature in the parallel phrase in the third line of the first verse: "To realize that she was strong and he too weak to stay."  There are two clauses (as objects of "realize") here: "she was strong" and "he too weak to stay."  That second clause doesn't have a verb of its own; it's only understood through that parallel structure and taking the verb from that first clause.  So: "she was strong and he [was] too weak to stay."  The he is sort of a parasitic pronoun in that it has to use the verb from the other clause; like the person it refers to, it's weak.

Odessey and Oracle

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I listened to Odessey and Oracle to-day (with bonus tracks), and I discovered a lot of new things!

"Care of Cell 44"

The last three lines of the first verse all start with words that end in "-ing," but their meaning is sort of ambiguous.

Good morning to you I hope you're feeling better, baby
Thinking of me while you are far away
Counting the days until they set you free again
Writing this letter hoping you're OK

The "thinking" seems to go along with the "you're" from the previous line, so: "I hope you're feeling better [and] thinking of me...."  (Although the "thinking of me..." could also be a participial.)  The subject of "counting" could be either the "you" or the singer/speaker.  "I hope you're... counting the days..." or "[I am] counting the days."  (Again, "counting the days..." could be a participial too, modifying either the "you" or the speaker/singer.)  The subject of "writing" is clearly the speaker/singer.  Things could be divided a couple different ways there.

"A Rose for Emily"

There's an extra line in the second and third verses (which I knew), but this time I realized the significance of the music's repetition there.  The chords under the second half of "The roses in her garden fade away" (A and Bm) are also used for the next line: "Not one left for her grave."  Musically, there's a return to "the roses in her garden," as if to check if there's one for her grave.

"Maybe after He's Gone"

There's some parallelism in the lines "I feel I'll never breathe again / I feel life's gone from me."  Particularly because both start with "I feel," "I'll never breathe again" is equated to "life's gone from me."

"Brief Candles"

I got thinking about the "tight" in the first line: "There she sits her hands are held, tight around her glass."  In that rendering, it's an adjective, but it could also be parsed as a flat adverb:  "There she sits her hands are held tight[ly] around her glass."  There's no real difference in the meaning, but grammatically it's different.

I also discovered a consistency in the rhyme scheme.  Each verse has a rhyme scheme of AABB, but the B's carry over: the last two lines of the first verse end with "stay" and "way;" the those in both the second and third verses end with "say" and "way."

I think I noticed this before but forgot to write about it: the vocals are double-tracked during Blunstone's verse (as are the others'), except for the second "say" in "He does not say a single word, no word of love to say."  It draws attention to itself because that second voice is missing, and it musically portrays the lack of a "word of love."

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

The continual repetition of "I want her she wants me" at the end mirrors the cyclical nature of the statement itself.  It just keeps going around.

"Butcher's Tale"

I noticed this earlier, but I've neglected to write about it:  the repetition of the "can't/won't stop shaking" line reflects the inability to cease.

A new thing I noticed though is the rhyme scheme of the first verse, which is different from all the others.  The first verse has ABAB ("trade," "fee," "stayed," "see") where the others are ABCB.  So as the speaker/singer looks back on his past life ("A butcher, yes, that was my trade...") things have a stronger coherence than they do once he goes to war.

"Friends of Mine"

I'd previously noted the parallelism in "That's something to see; that's nothing to hide," but I noticed a new one in the chorus:  "And they've got something it's so hard to find" parallels with "And they've got something you don't often find."  It's not as strictly parallel as some other instances, but it's pretty close.

—Bonus Tracks—
"I'll Call You Mine"

I've been meaning to mention this since 19 April:  although "I'll Call You Mine" is a bonus track, it works really well sequenced after "Time of the Season" (as it is on one of the Odessey and Oracle CD re-issues I have) because they're in relative keys.  "Time of the Season" is in E minor, and "I'll Call You Mine" is (at least mostly) in G major.

I did notice a new thing too.  During this section:

I couldn't chance to break the spell we had
The happy times we had, and yet the times were sad
Just for me, baby, you understood then
I was afraid to try to call you mine

Blunstone is singing the lead vocal, and Argent is doing the harmony vocal.  But Argent's harmony vocal drops out for the third line.  So there's only one voice (Blunstone's) singing "Just for me...."  It emphasizes the exclusivity.

"Don't Cry for Me"

An-other thing I've neglected to write about:  the "down" in the lines "Don't break your heart / Thinking you have let me down" is broken into syllables (a melisma), and the later notes are lower in pitch, so the word itself is going down.

"Smokey Day"

Like the "tight" in "Brief Candles," there are words here that could be either adjectives or flat adverbs:  "Soft, serene, she dances" or "Soft[ly], serene[ly] she dances."

"She Loves the Way They Love Her"

Surely I must have noticed this before, but I don't think I've written about it:  in the first line of the third verse, there's a multitude of internally-rhyming words:  "Crying, dying, sighing, whining, shining in the microphone."

Odessey and Oracle

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While recording my 2015 version of Odessey and Oracle, I kept finding more things to write about, so I just saved them for later.

I'll just go by track order.

I never remember when the mellotron comes in during the verses of "Care of Cell 44," so I wrote down on my arm the words on which it comes in:

It looks kind of funny because arms are not the best surface to write on, and my pen was giving me difficulties.

The last two verses have the same lyrics, but the mellotron comes in on different words the second time.  The first time, it comes in on "again" and "saved;" the second time on "have" and "train."  The whole verse:

It's gonna be good to have you back again with me
Watching the laughter play around your eyes
Come up and fetch you, saved up for the train fare money
Kiss and make up, and it will be so nice

After seeing those four words written out, I realized that they're pairs of imperfect rhymes - "again" & "train" and "saved" & "have."  I'm not sure if this was Rod Argent's intention either in 1) writing those particular pairs of words or 2) having the entrance of the mellotron emphasize them, but as imperfect rhymes they sort of provide the sense that the ideal situation that the speaker/singer is describing isn't going to work out.  This is also seemingly hinted at by the "could" in the line "And it could be so nice," which appears twice in the bridge.

Since 2014's version, I've learned some of the chords for "A Rose for Emily" (mostly from a book I have that has some sheet music for a few of the songs).  Knowing some of the chords has helped in correcting the bass notes I'd had.  And - if I'm right in what I have now - there's a Bachian sort of sequential half step.  C# to D and then G to F#.  I've mentioned multiple times that Rod Argent likes to use sequential half steps, but his are usually linked (the second note in the first pair is the first note in the second pair), but that's not the case here.  It's not strictly Bachian either, because one is a rising half step and the other is a falling half step (in the B-A-C-H motif, they're both falling half steps).  Still, I thought it interesting.

Apparently I've severely neglected "Maybe after He's Gone."  Before this year, I've mentioned it in only two posts.  So it's good that I have six things to say about it:

1. For the first time, I noticed how much of the music is chromatic and diatonic.  Excepting the chorus ("Maybe after he's gone / she'll come back / love me again") the chords are almost entirely diatonic, and there's a chromatic phrase (E to C#) in the backing vocals (it's most prominent at the end, when the instruments fall away).  Similar to Argent's imperfect rhymes and mellotron, I don't know if this is what Chris White had in mind while writing the song, but that predictability and steadiness of the diatonicism and chromaticism give the assurance that the singer/speaker seems to need so desperately.
2. There's an-other instance in "Maybe after He's Gone" of remembering - "I remember joy and pain."  I'm fairly certain that joy is present in some Zombies songs and more particularly in early Argent songs (like "Bring You Joy," obviously), but - again - I need to work on a lyrical concordance to investigate this.
3. "Maybe after He's Gone" also has crying!  The line after "I remember joy and pain" is "Her smile, her tears are part of me."  Later, there's "And all the dreams I'm dreaming now / Hide the tears that I cry."
4. And, of course, dreams: "All the dreams I'm dreaming now."
5. Along with the A, Bm, D chord progression that I mentioned earlier, "Maybe after He's Gone" contains an-other musical element that's present in some of the other Odessey and Oracle songs and that helps to tie the album together.  Specifically, high and insistent A notes.  During the chorus, these A notes are in the piano part (later, they move to B, then D, then back to A, to follow the chords, and then there's a chromatic phrase from B to C# [which is a good example of Rod Argent's type of sequential half step - B to C to C#]).  There are also high A notes in "Changes" (also on piano) and in "Brief Candles" (prominently on guitar, but I think also on mellotron).  The bass parts for "Care of Cell 44" and "Brief Candles" also contain high A notes at times (high for bass, at least).  Incidentally, both sides of the album start on A notes.  That is, both "Care of Cell 44" (the first song on Side One) and "Changes" (the first song on Side Two) start with an A note.
6. In checking the notes for that chromatic phrase, I learned how to play the melody for the lead vocals (just to see how the two parts go together), and I discovered a phrase that's also in the mellotron part in "Hung up on a Dream."  The melody that accompanies the lyrics "she'll come back, love me a[gain]" (just the first syllable of "again") is the phrase G# A B G# A B.  And if I have that section of the mellotron part from "Hung up on a Dream" right, that phrase (even repeated like that) is in the solo (at about 1:04).  Some of the note values differ, but not too greatly.

I have one other thing I noticed about "Hung up on a Dream," but I still have to look into that.

Odessey and Oracle

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I feel like I've been posting a lot here lately, but I've had lots to say lately.

Yester-day I recorded the guitar parts for my annual Odessey and Oracle, and I discovered something.

I don't know if I've written a post about it specifically, but I think I've mentioned this idea I have about the coherence of the album - that part of it is just because the musicality of the songs is similar.

In any case, I found an-other instance of that.  I'd forgotten the chords for parts of "This Will Be Our Year" (I really need to start writing things down), and it took me awhile before I came up with them again (B, Dm, A).  Once I did, I realized that the same three chords (in a different order - A, B, Dm, A) comprise a section in "Maybe after He's Gone."

I think it's also significant that part of "Brief Candles" has the progression D, A, D, B.  That's D major instead of D minor, but I still think it belongs in the same group.  Besides, the D minor in "This Will Be Our Year" is later raised to a D major.

"Brief Candles"

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Last night, I figured out the mellotron parts for "Brief Candles."  Or at least I think I did.  I think there are mellotron parts throughout the choruses, which I hadn't noticed; I'd thought they were just in the bridge.  I used the fake flute setting on my keyboard, which I think has a bit too much tremolo to sound mellotron-like, but it's the best I could do.  I've been thinking about getting a Nord keyboard so I can use their mellotron samples, but I don't have the money for it yet (and probably won't for a long time).  They also have Hohner Pianet samples, which I could definitely use.  They even list the Zombies under famous uses of the Pianet.

I still don't know very much of the piano part (so a lot of this is empty space), and I still have to record what I know with two tracks because I can't play both parts at once (so they don't match up perfectly).

But because I learned the mellotron part, I think I now know all of the mellotron parts on Odessey and Oracle ("Care of Cell 44," "Brief Candles," "Hung up on a Dream," and "Changes").  What I know for "Hung up on a Dream" might not be too accurate though.  (There's also the un-used mellotron part for "A Rose for Emily," but I haven't gotten around to learning that yet.)

"Brief Candles"

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I think I've figured out the opening piano part for "Brief Candles."  This same phrase repeats in the first part of the verses too (the whole of the first line and most of the second).

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a very good keyboard player, so I had to record this in two parts - the melody and the accompaniment.

Odessey and Oracle

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I've been focusing on learning songs from Odessey and Oracle lately, so when I listened to it this morning, I was paying more attention than usual.  And I noticed some things.  (It's a bit weird to me that there are still things I'm only just now discovering about it.)

• The piano figure that occurs near the end of "Care of Cell 44" is musically foreshadowed by the a cappella parts earlier in the song.  They're the same notes; it's just that one is multi-tracked voices and the other is on piano.
• The final G in the first bass riff in "I Want Her She Wants Me" is an octave lower than the rest, which is not the way I'd been playing it.
• In "This Will Be Our Year," the chord progression goes from D minor to D major at the same time as the proclamation of love.  "And I won't forget the way you said [minor to major modulation] 'Darling, I love you.'"  It gives it more emphasis.
• I'd been suspicious of this, but I'm now pretty sure that the guitar solo on "Friends of Mine" is double-tracked.  In the stereo version, you can hear how one comes in just a little bit later than the other when it's repeated.
• "A Rose for Emily" and "Butcher's Tale" contain the same three-note phrase:  F E D.  Those sorts of musical phrases appearing in multiple songs may provide the album with some coherence.  (But I don't want to emphasize that too much - I don't know whether Rod Argent and Chris White consciously thought of that, whether it just illustrates musical sensibilities that they liked and unknowingly used frequently, or whether it's just a coincidence that these songs have similar musical features.)  Additionally, "Time of the Season" has a three-note falling phrase, but that's E D C.  And an-other similar feature is a bass part centered around two A's an octave apart, which occurs in "Care of Cell 44" (where they're separated by an E) and "Brief Candles" (where it's just an octave jump).

"Brief Candles"

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I finally got around to updating what I know of "Brief Candles."  I had a few parts in the bass wrong, and the guitar part was in the wrong octave.

A few months ago, I did some work on the piano part.  I know that it's mostly centered around the first five notes of the E major scale, but I don't know it that well (I haven't practised it, and I'm not even sure if I ever figured out the whole melody) and I certainly don't know the accompaniment.  I didn't include it here, which is why this starts at the beginning of the first chorus and why there are a lot of empty places.

Also, I'm not sure if I have all of the bass part for the very end.  It fades out, so it's a bit hard to hear.  Though, like the piano part, I haven't done any work lately on figuring that out either.

"You'll Go from Me" / "Don't Go Away" / "Brief Candles"

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I've been listening to the Zombies everyday since the start of June in an attempt to internalise their music, and - unsurprisingly - I've been learning how to play some parts.

I'm pretty sure I just figured out the chord progression for "You'll Go from Me," which was later reworked into "Don't Go Away."  At one point, there's F# G A D F# G A, which is really similar to a section of the bass part in "Brief Candles," which is F# G A D F# G A B.

"Brief Candles"

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To-day was the first day of my third year at university.  As an English major, I have to take a class on Shakespeare, and one of the things my professor did was have us go around the room and say something personally significant about Shakespeare.  I commented on how far-flung allusions to him are.  As an example, I used the phrase "brief candle" from Macbeth.  Aldous Huxley took this phrase and titled a series of short stories Brief Candles.  Then, Chris White took that title and wrote a song called "Brief Candles" for Odessey and Oracle.  Rod Argent had quoted Shakespeare's The Tempest in the liner notes, and now here was this other, hidden Shakespeare reference.

So when that class was done, I decided to listen to "Brief Candles," because it had been awhile since I last listened to it.  But while listening to it, I thought the bass line sounded pretty easy to learn.  So I did.  And then I learned the rest of the guitar part.  (The audio posted above includes only the guitar and bass part, as that's all I have the opportunity to record at the moment.)

I was going to post this to my other tumblr account, where I keep my personal musical output, but I'd been thinking of creating a tumblr to track my progress of learning all of the Zombies' songs (and other related bands' songs, such as Argent and Colin Blunstone’s solo work).  So I decided finally to do it.

I've learned a handful of songs already, but I haven't recorded any official versions yet (and since I'm currently at university, it doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon).  So I'm still very early on in this long project.