"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" a couple days ago and had a small realization about the line "Saved you the room you used to stay in ev'ry Sunday."  The phrase "ev'ry Sunday" is sung to notes of all different pitches (G A B C), giving a sense of number.

Odessey and Oracle

Last week, I found an-other small musical element that lends some cohesion to Odessey and Oracle.  I was playing the vocal melody from "Care of Cell 44" on organ and realized that a section of it contains all of the same pitches as the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me," which I wrote about recently.

The bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me" has only four pitches (G D E G'), something like this:

The vocal melody in "Care of Cell 44" is beyond my notational ability, but every other line of the verses is something like D D E D E D G' E D E G A B C (sometimes with the initial D omitted).  The first eleven notes (corresponding to the words "It's gonna be good to have you back again" in one line) match the pitches in the bass part in the coda of "I Want Her She Wants Me."

"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.

"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" a couple days ago, and I realized that it has some similarity with the Everly Brothers' "Take a Message to Mary."  Both songs are about someone in prison and a letter or message either to or from that person ("Writing this letter hoping you're OK" in "Care of Cell 44" and the recurring title phrase in "Take a Message to Mary").

While the Everly Brothers did have some influence on the Zombies, I think this similarity is probably a coincidence.  In this interview (starting at ~32:37), Rod Argent talks about how he wrote the song, specifically how it changed as he was writing it:  "I just started out one day with the phrase, and I thought, you know, I started writing a love song really:  'Good morning to you; I hope you're feeling better, baby / Thinking of me while you are far away,' and then I thought, 'Well, why is she far away?' and then I thought, 'Well, let's not do the normal cliché; let's imagine a situation, you know, that's got some, uh, a little bit of bite to it,' and then I just imagined this thing...."  In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, he comments, "There was no inspiration behind it really."  If the Everly Brothers' song was an influence, it seems like it was only a subconscious one.  Still, I thought I'd note it.

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.

"Care of Cell 44"

A number of years ago, I wrote some posts about musical elements in "Care of Cell 44" that seem to undermine the apparent happiness and optimism.  Yester-day, I was thinking about the bass part during the bridge, and I realized that it's one of these elements too.

The lyrics there are:

We'll walk in a way we used to walk

And it could be so nice

We'll talk in a way we used to talk

And it could be so nice

I've noted before that for "a way we used to walk," the lead vocal is on the off-beats, illustrating perhaps that the two people in this relationship were at odds with each other.

For almost all of the bridge, the bass plays on the off-beats too.  It's something like:

Musically, this seems to illustrate that the "way we used to walk" was out of step.

"Care of Cell 44"

I was thinking about "Care of Cell 44" recently and had two thoughts:

First, it would make more sense to understand the "good morning" at the beginning of the song more metaphorically than strictly temporally.  It's an epistolary song ("writing this letter..."), and the letter could be read at any time of the day, not just the morning.  As a metaphor, though, this "good morning" could represent the renewal of the relationship that the narrator describes ("we'll get to know each other for a second time").

Second, a change in the bass part seems to indicate the narrator's growing eagerness.  For the first three verses, most of the bass part is half notes, but in the verse after the bridge, the bass part is mostly quarter notes.  To some degree, this provides a musical sense of increasing excitement, as if the narrator's heart is beating faster in anticipation of meeting his girlfriend again.

"Care of Cell 44"

Because yester-day was the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Odessey and Oracle, I listened to it (of course) and noticed a few things.

In "Care of Cell 44" the "so" in the line "Feels so good you're coming home soon" is sung with a melisma (I think it's F# G F#).  This emphasizes that adverb, giving a greater sense of exactly how good it feels.

I listened to the fiftieth anniversary edition of the album, which includes an alternate mix of "Care of Cell 44" as a bonus track.  I'd noticed that in take 2 of the backing track (which is also on the thirtieth anniversary edition) Hugh Grundy clicks his drum sticks together to keep time during the a cappella sections, and I'd assumed that he did this for the final version (take 4 according to the Zombie Heaven liner notes) and that it was muted or edited out during mixing.  Although I've been regularly listening to this fiftieth anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle for the last year, it wasn't until yester-day that I realized that the alternate mix of "Care of Cell 44" restores that feature: during those a cappella sections, you can hear the drum sticks clicking together to keep time.

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" b/w "Maybe after He's Gone"

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes and Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (24 November 1967), the Zombies' "Care of Cell 44" b/w "Maybe after He's Gone" (CBS 3087) was released in the U.K.  Russo's Collector's Guide lists the U.S. release date of the same single (Columbia 4-44363) as 20 November 1967 (although this isn't listed in the Zombie Heaven liner notes).

"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.

"Care of Cell 44"

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I knew I'd been procrastinating on this, but I didn't know how long I've been procrastinating on this.  Back in June after I posted the chords to "Care of Cell 44" I learned the vocal melody.  There are a couple interesting things that I felt a recording illustrated better than just text, so I recorded an abbreviated piano version.  I think all I omitted was one of the initial two verses, but because I played this from memory and not along to the recording, it goes a lot faster (as is apparently my wont).

The "better, baby" in the first line ("Good morning to you, I hope you're feeling better, baby") has an ascending melody (G A B C), which reflects the meaning of that adverb.  There's an ascent to represent that optimism ("I hope") and improvement ("better").

I've written before about how - while the speaker/singer seems optimistic - there are some musical things that portend ill toward the relationship in the song (like the static bass part in the bridge [to which I can now also add the static vocal melody; it also gets stuck on a G note for a while] and the dissonant tritone [G and C#] in the a cappella sections, not to mention the lyric "Kiss and make up," which seems to indicate that the speaker/singer had some involvement in the girl's incarceration).  I found some more of those.

The "home" in the line "Feels so good you're coming home soon" is sung to an A note.  The song is (mostly) in G major though (where the musical "home" is a G note), so there's sort of a musical implication that the home to which the girl is going isn't the same one that the singer/speaker is talking (or singing) about.  It's as if she's going to A major instead.

During the bridge (particularly during the A7 chords, so roughly for the lyrics "we used to walk" and "we used to talk"), the melody is on the off-beats, which implies that the two people walked out-of-step and that there was some friction in their talking to each other.

The "and it could be so nice" is sung in either a different key or with a lot of accidentals (it's G G F Eb F D).  Because of that foreign tonality, there's a feeling of difference, which I suppose the conditional "could" also points to, but it remains that the different tonality there is because of either a different key or a lot of accidentals (implying that the girl would have to go somewhere else for it to "be so nice" or that - like the accidentals - the speaker/singer would have to change a lot).

"Care of Cell 44"

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Originally, I'd intended to post the guitar chords for "Care of Cell 44" with the mellotron part written out in notation.  In notating it though, I found some parts that I'm not sure I have right.  I'm pretty sure of the chords though, so I'm posting only those.

Verses:

|: G major / D major / E minor / D major / C major / B minor / A minor / D major
G major / D major / Bb major / Dsus4 / D major :|

For the "Feels so good" section:
G major / D major / E minor / D major / C major / B minor / A minor

There is no guitar part during the bridge.  You could play the piano chords for that part on guitar, but I'm a purist and wouldn't advocate it, so I'm not listing those chords here (if you're that determined though, you could find them elsewhere on this blog).

Near the end, after the "Feels so good" section there's a G major to G major dominant 7th (G7) modulation, and then the progression from the "Feels so good" section is repeated, resolving to a G major at the end.

"Care of Cell 44"

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Yester-day I was thinking about the bridge of "Care of Cell 44" again, and I realized that that G note isn't only in the chords and the bass part; it's in the vocal melody too.  There are only four different notes in the vocal melody for the bridge; the bold in the following is entirely G notes:

We'll walk in a way we used to walk
And it could be so nice
We'll talk in a way we used to talk
And it could be so nice

So now I know of three things there that emphasize the frozen and static nature of the past.

"Care of Cell 44"

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A few days ago, I wrote about a feature that the chords in the bridge of "Care of Cell 44" share with the chords in the verses of "I Know She Will" and how - since "I Know She Will" is a Chris White song but "Care of Cell 44" is a Rod Argent song - it seems that Argent took the sequential-chords-with-a-common-note feature from White's song.  Just now though, I found something in those "Care of Cell 44" chords that's characteristic of Argent's writing: two linked half-steps.  After the initial G major, it's A7 (A, C#, E, G), C minor (C, Eb, G), G major (G, B, D).  That same three-note phrase is in the second chord sequence too: G major, A7 (A, C#, E, G), C minor (C, Eb, G), Dsus4 (D, G, A), D major.

"I Know She Will"

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Last night I was playing through the chords to "I Know She Will" on keyboard.  Since I learned the flute part, I've been playing that fairly regularly, and I really love the chords during the verses.  I think I had some suspicion that they were familiar, but I didn't place it until last night.  They share a feature with the chords during the bridge of "Care of Cell 44."

Both have a string of chords that all have a single common note, and they end in a modulation in which that single note falls a half-step (from a fourth to a third in relation to the root of the final two chords).  In "I Know She Will," that common note is an A, which then falls to a G#.  It's D major (D, F#, A), D7 (D, F#, A, C), A major (A, C#, E), Esus4 (E, A, B), E major (E, G#, B).  In the bridge of "Care of Cell 44," it's a G note, which is further emphasized because it's the only note played by the bass until that half-step descent, when the bass goes back to the opening phrase.  So, G major (G, B, D), A7 (A, C#, E, G), C minor (C, Eb, G), which - after going back to G major - repeats before going to Dsus4 (D, G, A), D major, (D, F#, A).

At first, I thought, "Oh, it's just Rod Argent doing the same sort of thing again," but then I looked up the writing credit for "I Know She Will" just to make sure, and I discovered that it's actually a Chris White song.  I think I've always regarded Argent as the more sophisticated writer from a technical standpoint, but it seems that in the bridge of "Care of Cell 44" he was actually taking something from White's writing.

"Care of Cell 44"

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I've been reading Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, and last night I read a section about Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.  Swafford briefly mentions some tritones in the first two movements.  The tritone is also known as the diabolus in musica (the devil in music) because of its dissonance, but Swafford explains that "the implication here is not tragic or demonic but contrarian."

This made me realize that there's a tritone in "Care of Cell 44."  It's the last group of notes in the humming part just before "Feels so good you're coming home soon."  One vocal part has a G, and an-other has a C#, which together make a tritone.

In the past, I've written about elements in "Care of Cell 44" that seem to indicate that there's something off about the relationship that's described (I really need to make a post that compiles them because they're all over the place), and that tritone in the vocal parts is something else I can add to the list.

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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I got to thinking about Odessey and Oracle this morning, and I realized that since "Care of Cell 44" and "Changes" both start with A notes, both sides of the album start with A notes, so there's a kind of tonal consistency in beginning.