"Call of the Night"

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I'd actually forgotten about this, but two weeks ago I learned the bass part for the verses of "Call of the Night."  The bridge is still giving me some problems.

At the beginning of the year, I started looking into one of the Zombies' Decca-era tracks every week, either trying to learn an-other part or write down parts I already learned before I forget them.  For "Call of the Night," I notated as much of the bass part as I know (I'm missing only twelve measures!), and I wrote down the chords.

"Visions of Johanna"

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Collection Audit:

This morning I listened to the first disc of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (and I'm listening to the second disc now).  I found something in "Visions of Johanna" that both excited and confused me. 

At about 3:49, there's a short guitar riff: 

 

This is the fifth song I've found that riff in (which is the exciting part), but now I have even less of an answer to questions of influence (which is the confusing part). 

I first found that riff in the Zombies' "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" (there are two versions on Into the Afterlife, but that riff is only in the second version - the one with fuzz guitar).  Then I found it in the Moody Blues' "So Deep within You" from On the Threshold of a Dream.  A few months later, I stumbled across it in the Tremeloes' "Hello World."  And then I also found it (albeit on piano) in Colin Blunstone's "Caroline Goodbye" from One Year. 

"Visions of Johanna" predates all of those though.  It's from 1966.  "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" is from 1968 (but wasn't released until 2007).  "So Deep within You" and "Hello World" are both from 1969, and "Caroline Goodbye" is from 1971. 

I'd postulated that there was some influence between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "So Deep within You" because the Zombies and Moody Blues knew each other, and there's almost certainly some connection between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "Caroline Goodbye" because Rod Argent was the leader of the Zombies and played piano for Blunstone (who was also in the Zombies).  I'd had trouble fitting in the Tremeloes though. 

Finding that same phrase in this Dylan song still doesn't clear up everything, but it does introduce a new line of influence.  The Tremeloes covered Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" at the end of 1968, so they were familiar with him, possibly including that particular riff in "Visions of Johanna." 

A strumming pattern in "Visions of Johanna" also stuck out to me.  I'm not sure if I have the chord phrasing right, but it's something like: 

 

There's an Asus4 that modulates to an A major.  With a slight difference (modulating to A minor rather than A major) that same rhythm is in the Zombies' demo of "Call of the Night": 

 

"Call of the Night" was later re-workt into (and put into a different key for) "Girl Help Me," but that feature is present there too. 

I'm not sure if any of this really provides evidence that any of these musicians were influenced by an-other, but their songs at least share some similar features that I thought interesting.

I found more stuff about that riff in "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "Caroline Goodbye," but it doesn't really clear anything up.

I might have found a Dylan influence on "Call of the Night"/"Girl Help Me" though.

"Call of the Night"

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I just checked my tag for "Call of the Night," and in that post where I hypothesize (wrongly!) that all suspended chords in Zombies songs are based around A major, I say that the riff in "Call of the Night" is between Asus2 and A major.

It's not.  It's A minor and Asus4.

In the rough version I just posted, I played it with barre chords, but it may have been easier to do it with the "normal" version of Am.  I just have a tendency to play barre chords because - despite their being harder sometimes - I feel they give a more even sound.  I could go into a whole explanation of how barre chords help to fix the uneven distribution of chords' constituent notes (both in position and number) that occurs in standard tuning (which is one reason why I love open D tuning - it doesn't have that problem), but I'll just leave it that.

"Call of the Night"

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This was later re-worked into "Girl Help Me," but I think the two are distinct enough to separate them.

"Call of the Night" was recorded by the original Zombies (albeit only as a demo), but "Girl Help Me" was recorded after they broke up and - according to the liner notes in Zombie Heaven - may have featured Argent personnel.

Also, the lyrics are substantially different (I actually prefer "Call of the Night" because at times I feel like love songs as a genre have become a cliché, so it's interesting to hear something that's about something else - in this case, transience), and the chord progressions are slightly different.  "Girl Help Me" is also in a lower key - probably because Rod Argent sang it instead of Colin Blunstone.

A major

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Also, I'm not sure how accurate this is, but every suspended chord that I've encountered in the Zombies' repertoire so far has been around an A major.

• The end of the solo in "She's Not There" (Asus4 to A major)
• The very end of "A Rose for Emily" (Asus4 to C# - ending on A major's third)
• The guitar part in "Call of the Night" AKA "Girl Help Me" (seemingly constant variation between Asus2 and A major during the verses)
• A very small guitar part in "I Don't Want to Worry" (an Asus2 thrown in between two A majors)