"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

I listened to I Love You yester-day because it was the fifty-seventh anniversary of the Zombies' first proper recording session.  I hadn't noticed this before, but it sounds like Rod Argent is using a volume pedal with his Vox Continental at the beginning of "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself."  I did some research, and I actually found a picture of him in the studio with the Continental and a volume pedal:

[source]

I'm pretty sure this picture is from 10 December 1964.  It was during this session that the Zombies received an award from Cash Box for the chart success of "She's Not There," so there was a bit of press coverage and a series of photographs.  Of course, "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" wasn't recorded until 1966 (4 May, according to the liner notes of The Decca Stereo Anthology), but this picture proves that Argent had a volume pedal for his Continental.

I made an Instagram post about this to try to demonstrate it:

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"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

Years ago, I noticed that in "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," after the line "Late at night I hear footsteps sound down the hall," there's a descending bass part, apparently to represent those footsteps musically.  This morning, I was thinking about this feature again and realized that there's more to it than that.

Here's the bass part for that line:

Although there are a number of accidentals, the notes in the last two measures are fairly conjunct.  The intervals are mostly half steps or whole steps, so there are musical "steps" in the bass part to represent the footsteps in the lyrics.

Looking at this again now, it strikes me that those accidentals could hold some significance.  For those two measures, all of the flats in C minor are made natural, resulting in a section of a C major scale.  This turn from minor to major is the same sentiment expressed in that verse: the singer/speaker is "kid[ding] myself that you're coming back after all," and so there's a glimmer of happiness.

"The Ghost of You and Me"

I recently started transcribing the lyrics from the liner notes of Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me.  While copying the title track, I remembered something I'd noticed a long time ago, but apparently I neglected to write about it.

In the bridge, there are the lines "I hear the voices call / Following footsteps down the hall," which are fairly similar to the second verse of the Zombies' "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself":

Late at night I hear footsteps sound down the hall
And I kid myself that you're coming back after all
Telephone rings, but there's no one on the line no no no
When I stop and think, I know it's all in my mind

Both portray a lost love's imagined "footsteps down the hall."  There seems to be a bit of a connection between "the voices call[ing]" in "The Ghost of You and Me" and the "telephone ring[ing]" in "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" too.

However, neither of these songs was written Blunstone (or the other Zombies).  "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" was written by Clint Ballard Jr. and Angela Riela, and "The Ghost of You and Me" by Jon Lind and Richard Page.  So while it doesn't seem that the resemblance is meant to be a reference, it does seem to say something about Blunstone's sensibilities and what sort of songs he records.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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I have notation this week too!

Over the last couple days, I notated the bass part for "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself."  In the process, I discovered that I'd been missing some notes (which seems to be a regular thing; notation forces me to scrutinize what I'm playing).

The whole rests at the beginning and the first pair of tied whole notes at the end are where the organ plays the main motif, but the tempo there isn't consistent.  The musical term is rubato.

Because the 50th anniversary of the recording (1 November 1966) and broadcast (5 November 1966) of the radio version of "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" was last week, I also lookt into that and notated it.  A long time ago, I mentioned something about comparing the studio versions with the live versions, and this was the first time I did that in a structured way.  I… uh, took note (I can't think of a less musical way to say that) of the notes that differed from the studio version, and when I wrote out the notation, I put those notes in red.  There are only four different notes, so starting a studio version/live version comparison with this song was sort of underwhelming, but there you go:

Saturday Club

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Verulam Cover Project:

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (1 November 1966), the Zombies recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," "Goin' out of My Head," and "This Old Heart of Mine" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 5 November.

Saturday Club

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According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (1 November 1966), the Zombies recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," "Goin' out of My Head," and "This Old Heart of Mine" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 5 November.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" b/w "The Way I Feel Inside"

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According to Russo's Collector's Guide and the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (23 September 1966), the Zombies' "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" b/w "The Way I Feel Inside" (Decca F. 12495) was released in the U.K.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (12 July 1966), the Zombies performed "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" on "Hippodrome" on CBS.  A few years ago, Reelin' in the Years posted color footage from the appearance:

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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Over a week ago, I said I would post the guitar chords for "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" in "a couple days," so this is long overdue.  I'm not writing it out in full (the |: :| signs indicate a repeated section), but it should be pretty easy to figure out the changes.

Verses:

|: C minor / F major :| - both are played higher up the neck, with the 8th fret barred

|: Bb major / Ab major :|

G major



Choruses:

|: C major / A minor / C major / E major

C# minor / E major / C# minor / B major :|

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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Apparently, this is only the second time I've recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" too.  I haven't learned any more of this, but I corrected a few errors.  I'd thought that a section of the bass part was just a scale (which I erroneously claimed was a "chromatic" descent when I last recorded this, before I knew what "chromatic" really means), but it doesn't complete the scale.  Instead of going to C and repeating, it goes to G and then starts over with C.  It's the kind of thing that notation would explain better than text does, and it doesn't help that this song has sections in multiple keys (C minor, C major, and E major, I think).

I also had the rhythm wrong with a section of the guitar chords.  I don't usually pay as much attention to strumming rhythm as I probably should, but this was something easy to fix.  I'd been continuously strumming throughout the second half of the verses ("I talk to you as though you can hear what I say…"), but it's actually two strums per chord in that third line and three per chord for the first half of the fourth.

I added some arpeggios to the organ chords in that same section (where the chord progression alternates between Bb major and Ab major).  I'm not sure that's strictly accurate, but the organ part is more than just straight chords, and doing it this way makes my recording a bit more interesting to listen to.

The guitar part for this is just chords (which I'm pretty confident I've figured out correctly), so I plan to post them in a couple days.

Recording Session

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According to The Decca Stereo Anthology liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (4 May 1966), the Zombies recorded "Indication," "I'll Call You Mine," "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," and "She Does Everything for Me."

Unlike the previous Zombies sessions (all held at Studio No. 2 at Decca West Hampstead), these were recorded as Lansdowne Studio.

"Gotta Get a Hold of Myself"

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This may be the song that I know the most parts for, which is sort of ironic because this wasn't written by the Zombies.

The organ part is more complex than I play it, but I discovered its complexity only a few months ago (when I got The Decca Stereo Anthology), and I haven't tried learning it more completely since then.

Also, can I just mention how great that descending chromatic bass line is?  I think it's supposed to represent the "footsteps sound[ing] down the hall."