I'm currently re-reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images. Recently, I read about "I Love You," and I realized that in one spot, the construction of the lyrics matches the meaning.
As it's formatted in the book, one section is:
If I could find the words in my mind
The words should explain, but the words won't come
If you could see what you mean to me
My words should explain, but the words won't come
Semantically, the line "If you could see what you mean to me" seems isolated. ("My words should explain" follows it sequentially but not logically since the explaining words would precede the knowledge of "what you mean to me.") The line is a protasis without an accompanying apodosis, so even in the construction here, there's a lack of words ("the words won't come").
When I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology back in September, I thought there was an ambiguity in the lines "I shouldn't hide / My love deep inside" in "I Love You." Yester-day, I watched the Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London DVD (because according to Russo's Collector's Guide, the concert was recorded on 6 June 2003), and I finally sussed it out: "deep inside" could function adverbially (modifying "hide," describing where to hide this love) or as a post-positive adjectival phrase (modifying "love," indicating the degree to which the narrator feels this emotion). Admittedly, the first seems more likely.
I've been reading The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images ever since I got it a few days ago. It's been really interesting seeing the hand-written lyrics (not only for seeing what the Zombies' handwriting looks like but also because of the authority that these transcriptions have), and while looking at the lyrics of "I Love You," I discovered something really clever.
The verses end with the lines "But something holds me back / When I try to tell you." Semantically, it could end there, but it also makes sense as an uninterrupted thought continuing into the chorus: "But something holds me back / When I try to tell you // I love you, I love you..."
The song starts with the chorus, so initially those "I love you"s stand independently, but when the chorus follows a verse, they could also be the direct object of "tell" in "When I try to tell you."
I just tried figuring out the guitar part for "I Love You." So far, I have only the verses, but I noticed something interesting. They're based on the chords A minor, Asus4, F major (7th?), and F major 6 (and E major). Those same chords also make up an entire section in "Lula Lula" (from the New World album, which I think is too often neglected). In "Lula Lula," the "Hold my hand..." sections are based on these same chords, but in a slightly different order. "I Love You" has them as |: A minor / Asus4 / A minor :| |:F major / F major 6 / F major :|, and they're in almost the opposite order in "Lula Lula" - |: Asus4 / A minor :| |: F major 6 / F major :|.
Both songs are - perhaps not surprisingly - in the same key (A minor) and written by Chris White.
To-day in 1965, the Zombies recorded "Don't Cry for Me," "How We Were Before," "I Know She Will," "I Love You," and "If It Don't Work Out." Except for "I Love You," my recordings of what I know of these are up-to-date, so here's my updated version of "I Love You." When I listened to the I Love You album last month, I discovered that some of the vocal lines are doubled on organ, which is one of the two major differences between this and my earlier recordings.
Some of the mixes on I Love You are stereo mixes, but they're different stereo mixes from those on The Decca Stereo Anthology. Or at least, the mixes of "I Love You" are different. In the mix on I Love You, the drums and bass are panned left, and the guitar and keyboards are panned right (the bass is audible in the right channel too). In the mix on The Decca Stereo Anthology, it's almost reversed: the drums, bass, and electric piano are panned right, and the guitar and organ are panned left. (The I Love You mix is also a lot louder.) In this case, the mixes aren't that different, but sometimes having different mixes makes it easier to pick out a part. It might be more isolated in one mix where in an-other, it's obscured by other parts.
The second major difference is that I learned the rest of the bass part. I'd been stuck on the part during the solo, which - in the typical Zombie fashion - is more involved than it is during the verses. I'm a bit unsure of some of those notes though (and some of the electric piano notes too).
In the bridge, there are the lines "There's so much I wanna say / But the right words don't come my way." It reminded me of "I love you / Yes I do, but the words won't come" and "My words should explain / But my words won't come" in the Zombies' "I Love You" (written by Chris White, their bass player). I'll cite the same source I cited two years ago: in the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Paul Atkinson (their guitarist) says, "We hung out in Ben E King and the Drifters' dressing room, and we'd play poker and sing and play guitar." "Some Kind of Wonderful" is from 1961; that Atkinson quote refers to 1964; and "I Love You" is from 1965, so the chronology would allow for that influence.
This also calls into question something I noticed a few years ago. There's a similar line in "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" from Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me album. It's "It's alright if the words won't come." Since Blunstone is the leader singer for the Zombies and wrote "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You," I thought that it was likely that he took that line from "I Love You," even if just subconsciously. But now that I found a similar line in a Drifters' song, I'm not so sure. Two years ago, I postulated that this same Drifters' song influenced Blunstone's "Wonderful" from his Journey album.
I feel it worth noting that the Zombies recorded a version of Blunstone's "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" (titled just "Never Get over You") on their new album Still Got That Hunger, so that Drifters' influence - if it's viable - has caught up with them again.
A few days ago, I realized that the bass parts for the verses of "Just out of Reach" and "I Love You" are quite similar:
Standard disclaimer that the notation might be wrong since I did it myself. I guessed at the keys, although I'm more confident that "Just out of Reach" is in A major (that's what it resolves to at the end) than I am that "I Love You" is in A minor. I should also note that the phrases repeat*, but I've included only four bars of each. The phrase for the verses in "Just out of Reach" is only two bars, so that one's there twice.
Both phrases are comprised of the same four notes in the same order (A C D E), save for a C at the end of the phrases in "Just out of Reach." I didn't realize this until I notated them, but each measure starts with the same rhythm too - a dotted quarter note and then an eighth note.
I looked up the recording dates to get the chronology right: "Just out of Reach" was recorded on 2 March 1965, and "I Love You" on 8 July 1965. "Just out of Reach" is a Blunstone song, so I'm unsure how involved Chris White was in coming up with that bass part. It seems that either that bass part may have provided some inspiration for him to write "I Love You" (since the bass part for the verses of "I Love You" is basically an expanded version of that in "Just out of Reach") or both bass parts just illustrate his style of bass playing really well.
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*I'm a bit unsure whether the phrases in the verses of "I Love You" really repeat or not because I can't tell if there are two verses of eight lines or four verses (in pairs) of four lines each.
I just played through the guitar parts for "Just out of Reach" and "Remember You" because - according to Russo's Collector's Guide - they were released to-day in 1965, and as soon as I started playing "Just out of Reach," I realized that it's in A minor, not A major like I said a few weeks ago. According to the book of Zombies music notation by Alfred Music, "I Love You" is in A minor too, so these two bass parts are more similar than I thought (because I stupidly remembered the key wrong for "Just out of Reach").
A few days ago, I realized that the bass parts for the verses of "Just out of Reach" and "I Love You" are quite similar:
Standard disclaimer that the notation might be wrong since I did it myself. I guessed at the keys, although I'm more confident that "Just out of Reach" is in A major (that's what it resolves to at the end) than I am that "I Love You" is in A minor. I should also note that the phrases repeat*, but I've included only four bars of each. The phrase for the verses in "Just out of Reach" is only two bars, so that one's there twice.
Both phrases are comprised of the same four notes in the same order (A C D E), save for a C at the end of the phrases in "Just out of Reach." I didn't realize this until I notated them, but each measure starts with the same rhythm too - a dotted quarter note and then an eighth note.
I looked up the recording dates to get the chronology right: "Just out of Reach" was recorded on 2 March 1965, and "I Love You" on 8 July 1965. "Just out of Reach" is a Blunstone song, so I'm unsure how involved Chris White was in coming up with that bass part. It seems that either that bass part may have provided some inspiration for him to write "I Love You" (since the bass part for the verses of "I Love You" is basically an expanded version of that in "Just out of Reach") or both bass parts just illustrate his style of bass playing really well.
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*I'm a bit unsure whether the phrases in the verses of "I Love You" really repeat or not because I can't tell if there are two verses of eight lines or four verses (in pairs) of four lines each.
I listened to "I Love You" yester-day and realized that the bass parts are (to some degree) doubled by electric piano. Also, I figured out a bit of the organ part. I'm still a bit unsure of it though.
This stops just before the electric piano solo because the bass part changes there and I haven't learned it yet.
"I Love You" is one of the songs in the book I have by Alfred Music, so I referenced that for the chords during the organ part. It says there's a C major 7th, and - playing the song on guitar - I agree with that, but it sounds wrong when I play a C major 7th on organ. For this recording, I just played an inverted C major so that the C is the highest note.
According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (3 September 1965), the Zombies' "Whenever You're Ready" b/w "I Love You" was released in the U.K.
According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (16 August 1965), the Zombies' "Whenever You're Ready" b/w "I Love You" (PAR 9786) was released in the U.S. and Canada.
"I Love You" demonstrates an-other benefit of my recording the catalogue every year: it indicates which songs I've neglected. A few days ago, I learned most of the bass part, but before that, I didn't know any parts to "I Love You." I can play the riff, but that's as it appears ("sounds," I guess) in the more recent live versions, not as it is on the original record. The chords are in the book I have by the Alfred company, but I'm going to wait on including those until I learn that original riff.
I did notice some interesting things about the bass part though: it starts with a falling fifth (from E to A), which is the same beginning (even the same notes) that "She's Not There" has. And like "I Remember When I Loved Her" and "Time of the Season," the bass part is more involved during the electric piano solo, which is why my version isn't complete: I haven't learned the part during the solo yet.
According to the liner notes of both Zombie Heaven and The Decca Stereo Anthology, fifty years ago to-day (8 July 1965) the Zombies recorded "How We Were Before," "I Love You," "If It Don't Work Out," "I Know She Will," and "Don't Cry for Me."
I realize I haven't been doing very much on this project lately, but by the end of the week, I'll be completely done with university, so I'll have some more time to work on this. I do have some songs I've been meaning to update ("Is This the Dream," "Remember You," and "Beechwood Park" in particular).
In the meantime, I just wrote a post about the I Love You album as part of my Collection Audit project:
I went a bit out-of-order this morning and listened to the Zombies compilation album I Love You. The Zombies have been my favorite band for the past five or six years, yet I'm still finding new things about their music (although I don't know whether that means they're a incredibly nuanced band or whether I'm not very good at listening).
I finally determined that "How We Were Before" features twelve-string guitar. I'd been suspicious of this (I'd played parts of it on my own twelve-string and thought it sounded pretty good), but now I'm fairly certain of it.
I discovered that Rod Argent uses organ on "Woman." This realization came after noticing the really long sustain on the G major chord during the guitar solo. It just keeps going, which means it has to be organ rather than electric piano.
For the first time, I noticed the three distinct vocals parts at the end of "Don't Go Away." Two parts are alternating with "don't go away," but the third is just an "ooh."
This album includes some stereo mixes of songs (which in some cases are different stereo mixes than those that appear on The Decca Stereo Anthology), so on some songs, things were placed in sonically different places, which made it easier to distinguish some parts. This is the case on "I Love You," and because of that I heard some interesting rhythmical interplay between the guitar and the bass during the "if I can find / the words in my mind" part.
Another suspicion that was confirmed is the guitar glissandoes at the beginning of "Remember You." I'd been suspicious of these since I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology about a month ago. The guitar part at the beginning alternates between two D's an octave apart and a D and some-other-note-that-I-still-have-to-determine that then slides up to a D.
Also, I may have found a reference to "She's Not There" in "She Does Everything for Me." "She's a girl who makes me feel / That you're not there, you weren't real" recalls the "she's not there" from "She's Not There." The "she" in "She Does Everything for Me" seems to have replaced the "she" in "She's Not There." In any case, it's an interesting parallel, as "She's Not There" was the Zombies' first single for Decca, and "She Does Everything for Me" was the B-side of their last single for Decca. Also, kudos to Rod Argent for getting the relative pronoun correct.
I got that album for my 17th birthday, and now I'm 22, but I'm still finding new things in the Zombies' music.
Also, I just checked my posts for "How We Were Before," and when I did a rough version last September, I actually did use twelve-string. So apparently I forgot I knew it had twelve-string.
