"Imagine the Swan" b/w "Conversation off Floral Street"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (30 May 1969), "Imagine the Swan" b/w "Conversation off Floral Street" (CBS 4242) was released in the U.K.

"Imagine the Swan" b/w "Conversation off Floral Street"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, "Imagine the Swan" b/w "Conversation off Floral Street" (Date 2-1644) was released fifty years ago to-day (29 April 1969) in the U.S. and Canada.

Recording Session

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (18 December 1968), "Imagine the Swan," "Smokey Day," and "I Could Spend the Day" were recorded at Morgan Studios, Willesden.  The liner notes also explain that these songs "featured the personnel of the soon-to-be named Argent" along with Mike Vickers on flute for "Smokey Day."

"Imagine the Swan"

I've noted before that, as the Zombie Heaven liner notes point out, the harpsichord at the beginning of "Imagine the Swan" arpeggiates chords in the same manner as Bach's C major prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846).  I recently printed out the notation for the prelude because I want to learn to play it (or try to, at least), and I noticed a couple things.

In the C major prelude, the initial two notes in each arpeggiation are held underneath the other notes:

I don't think Argent follows this in "Imagine the Swan."  It sounds like only the initial note is held, but only for the duration of the second note and only in the two introductory measures.  The rhythm is scaled down too, so it's something like:

As a bonus track on one of my editions of Odessey and Oracle, there's a mix where this harpsichord part is doubled on organ, and the organ certainly doesn't hold that initial note for the duration of the whole arpeggiation.  It plays all of the notes with equal values.

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Argent explains that "Imagine the Swan" uses "Chris' chord sequence but we did it like [the Bach prelude]."  Adjusted for key, though, the first two chords are the same... sort of.  The Bach prelude is in C major and arpeggiates a C major and then a D minor; "Imagine the Swan" is in F major and arpeggiates an F major and then a G minor.  Both have the tonic chord (I) and then the supertonic (ii), but the arpeggiations of the supertonic chords differ.  Bach puts a C note under his D minor and skips over an F (C D A D F), but Argent plays a regular old triad with some notes repeated higher (G Bb D G Bb).

Rod Argent

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To-day's Rod Argent's birthday, and here's a ramble-y post about him and Bach.

This morning I was thinking about Rod Argent's Classically Speaking again.  The only Bach piece on it is the C minor prelude and fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 847), and in the liner notes to Zombie Heaven, Argent says that "'Imagine the Swan' was written from the chord sequence of the first Bach prelude in 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' [BWV 846].  Well, actually it was Chris' chord sequence but we did it like that."

There have been a lot of interviews where Argent acknowledges his love of Bach.  In the liner notes to Classically Speaking, he says, "And I've always loved Bach!"

Until now I guess I hadn't really considered what of Bach's work Argent loves, but it probably would be the keyboard works.  In this interview, he explains that he has the complete Bach organ works performed by Peter Hurford* (whose name is misspelled).  But now that I've connected the influence that the Well-Tempered Clavier had on "Imagine the Swan" and Argent's including a prelude and fugue from it on Classically Speaking, I'm wondering how familiar he was with The Well-Tempered Clavier.

I'm woefully ignorant of it.  Aside from Argent's recording of the C minor prelude and fugue, I haven't even heard it, much less played it.  So there's an-other thing to work on.  I'm not sure how long this is going to last, but I think I might start going through the lesson book from the piano class I took in college.  Last time I did this, I lasted about six months (last June to December).  I'll never be as good as Argent, but I certainly can't get any better if I don't practice.

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*In his book, The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream, Claes Johanen explains that Hurford was in charge of the St. Albans Cathedral choir, which Argent was in.  That's kind of skipped around in the interview.

Unfortunately, Hurford's complete Bach organ works is out-of-print (it came out something like twenty years ago).  I have the two-disc set of excerpts (coincidentally, like the early Zombies stuff, it's on the Decca label), but I'm still trying to find the complete recordings (for an affordable price, that is).

Hurford also wrote a book, Making Music on the Organ, which I actually got a couple months ago.  I'm extraordinarily behind on my reading though, so I doubt I'll get to reading it anytime soon (although to-day I finished a Beethoven biography I've been reading since last March; the Well-Tempered Clavier was mentioned a few times in that too).

"Imagine the Swan"

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Last night, I looked into "Imagine the Swan" some more.  I think I've got the guitar parts from the second stereo version.  I had to split the track to hear them more clearly (in the left channel), and I don't think I'd ever really noticed them before.  And they're great!  It's a good example of my appreciating a song more once I've learned to play it (because otherwise I probably would have continued on in ignorance of those parts).

I think I had a chord wrong, but now that I've changed it, it still doesn't sound right.  I played the bass part a little differently too, but I’m still not convinced that it’s super accurate.

Also, I must amend what I wrote yester-day.  "Imagine the Swan" isn't a Rod Argent song; it's a Chris White song.  It shares that descending bass starting with a 7th chord and the Bach influence, and it's sung by Rod Argent, so naturally, I thought it was written by him too.  I looked it up in the Zombie Heaven liner notes whereby I discovered my error.

The liner notes also say that "it featured the personnel of the soon-to-be named Argent: Russ Ballard on guitar, Jim Rodford on bass and Bob Henrit on drums."  The Zombie Heaven version doesn't include those extra guitar overdubs, so because Ballard is credited there, I'm wondering if there are other guitar parts that I'm still unaware of.

"Imagine the Swan"

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I recently went through some old songs I recorded, and I found the harpsichord introduction to "Imagine the Swan" that I did almost two years ago.  I got thinking about it, and - from what I remembered - the bass part seemed pretty easy.  "Seemed."

Still, I made a lot of progress on this.  I have a very rough version of the bass part, and I think I learned the chords.*  The harpsichord part in the middle is different from that at the beginning, but they have the same structure, so I just played the introductory phrase again because I don't know the actual middle part.

I also learned that, like a few other Rod Argent songs, this uses a 7th chord to start a chromatic descent in the bass part.  It's during "So it was with surprise…" and later "So I let you walk by…."

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*Originally, I put a parenthetical there saying, "If they are played on guitar, they're really low in the mix," but then I went to verify this and discovered that while the version I used as a template for this (the first stereo mix included on an Odessey and Oracle reissue, which is also the one on Zombie Heaven) doesn't have guitar at all, a second stereo mix on that Odessey and Oracle reissue has overdubbed guitar and organ.  I should have referenced that before I started learning the parts.

"Shine on Sunshine"

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According to Russo's Collector's Guide, Argent's Circus came out to-day in 1975.  I listened to it and worked on transcribing the lyrics, but I found only one thing to say about it.

There's an-other instance of Rod Argent's gray image in the first chorus of "Shine on Sunshine":

So shine on, sunshine
Paint my life of gray
So shine on, sunshine
Warm my life away

Ostensibly, this builds on similar lines in "Imagine the Swan" ("For the colors are gone / You've become kind of gray") and "In My Mind a Miracle" from As Far As I Can See: "You turned me 'round / And made the colors true."

In the BBC MasterTapes interviews, Argent mentioned that part of Odessey and Oracle was about color.  The first time I listened to that, I thought he was talking about literal color, like in the song lyrics (although I never actually looked to see if there are any), but in referencing it awhile ago, I heard that part again and started wondering if he was talking about instrumental color (like timbre).  One or both of those might have some connection here.

I also referenced the version of "Shine on Sunshine" that's on Breathe Out, Breathe In, and I discovered that those lines aren't present (I haven't gotten around to transcribing them, but the lyrics are in the liner notes).  Each iteration of the chorus is virtually the same:

Shine on sunshine
Chase the clouds away
Shine on sunshine
Into my life each day

The last repetition has a slightly different last line: "Into my life always."

EDIT: It belatedly occurs to me that - duh! - "Shine on Sunshine" predates "In My Mind a Miracle."  Even though I had the chronology wrong, the images are still similar.

As Far as I Can See

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This morning, I listened to As Far as I Can See because - according to Russo's Collector's Guide - it was released to-day in 2004.  And - inevitably! - I noticed some things.  I worked on transcribing the lyrics although I later remembered that they're in the liner notes, which is helpful because I'd thought "black orchids" was "black rockets."

Because I just listened to "Imagine the Swan," I want to believe that the line "Made the colors true" in "In My Mind a Miracle" is a reference to the colors and their fading in "Imagine the Swan" ("For the colors are gone").  But more on that later.

There's the really obvious Odessey and Oracle reference in the line "In you I found my Odyssey and Oracle" (odyssey is spelt correctly in the liner notes), but more interesting is the following line: "No longer blind, I see because of you."  The blindness is linked with the oracle.  Traditionally, seers and prophets were often physically blind in a sort of exchange for their ability to see the future.  (I say "traditionally," but the only one I can think of is Tiresias.)

For years now, I've wondered if "I tried my best, but I could not cope / From the end of a telescope" in "Southside of the Street" is a reference to "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" from Into the Afterlife.

"I Want to Fly" is interesting in that there's an internal mosaic rhyme that's dependent on a caesura:  "Some lay sleeping / Deep inside a lullaby"  The way Colin Blunstone articulates this, there's a pause after the "in" of "inside," so that "sleeping" rhymes with "deep in."

There's also mosaic rhyme in "As Far as I Can See" in the lines "From a blue horizon / That I keep my eyes on."  I haven't looked into the lyrics as much as I'd like to, but I don't remember any instances of mosaic rhyme in the "classic Zombie" catalogue (from 1964 to 1967-ish), so I felt it a technique worth noting here.

"As Far as I Can See" also seems to have a reference to home:

There's a safe house waiting
That I know is waiting
Some way down the line.

It's not called a "home," but the same idea is still presented.  Rhyming "waiting" with "waiting" further emphasizes the safety.

There are more typical Zombies themes in "With You Not Here."  There's crying in the lines "No feeling left beyond the tears" and "Don't know where I go from here / 'Cause there's really nothing clear / Beyond the tears," and there's dreaming in "There's only an empty space / Where once we crowded our hopes / And shared all our dreams."

More interesting than those though are the lines "The color's faded now / The world is grey."  This is a stronger allusion to the lines in "Imagine the Swan" – "For the colors are gone / You've become kind of grey," but even if that's just a coincidence, there's still the connection between those lines in "With You Not Here" and the line "You turned me round and made the colors true" in "In My Mind a Miracle."  So regardless whether there's the connection between eras of the Zombies catalogue, there is a connection within this album itself.

"Wings against the Sun" also has some elements that I think are references to past Zombies songs.  The first two lines are "In your eyes appear the mystic roses of spring / Inspiring songs of approaching summer," which I think includes two references: "A Rose for Emily" (which also mentions summer) and - because of the resemblance between "mystic" and "misty" - "Misty Roses" from Colin Blunstone's One Year album.  The word mist is in the preceding song "With You Not Here," which I think provides a shred more evidence that they were thinking about past songs while they were writing these.  The "Odyssey and Oracle" in "In My Mind a Miracle" certainly testifies to it.

In listening to "Together," I found an-other one of those sneaky historical references - one that had gone over my head for the six years I've owned this album.  I'm fairly certain that the last part of the couplet "And I've come to need you like flowers need the rain / Have to love you as much as seasons have to change in time" is a reference to "Time of the Season."  (Incidentally "I've come to need you like flowers need the rain" strongly resembles "I need you / Like the flower needs the rain" from America's "I Need You.")

"Golden days" from "Look for a Better Way" also appears in "Beechwood Park," but because it's not such a distinctive phrase, I'm not sure if this is a reference or just a coincidence that illustrates how consistent the Zombies' writing has been (despite the fact that "Beechwood Park" is a Chris White song and "Look for a Better Way" a Rod Argent song, although Chris White does contribute backing vocals for it).

In looking through the liner notes to confirm the lyrics I've quoted, I also discovered that Andrew Powell helped with scoring the orchestral arrangements.  I'm fairly certain this is the same Andrew Powell who arranged and conducted the orchestra for all of the Alan Parsons Project albums (excepting Vulture Culture).

Odessey and Oracle

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I listened to Odessey and Oracle (with bonus tracks!) to work on transcribing the lyrics (which I think I'm almost finished with), and I noticed a lot of things.  I'm still slightly astounded that I'm only now discovering some things about this album, but at the same time, I hope I continue to do so because it just makes me love it so much more.

In the verses of "Beechwood Park," certain words are repeated within a line, ostensibly to further the images.  There's "Do you remember summer days just after summer rain" and "Do you remember golden days and golden summer sun."

Also in "Beechwood Park," there's assonance (and internal rhyme with "dark" and "park") in the line "And we would count the evening stars as the day grew dark in Beechwood Park."

If you isolate the backing vocals for the verses of "Hung up on a Dream," you can get some (perhaps relevant, perhaps irrelevant) statements:  "Gentle love / turned me on to sounds unheard" and "Sometimes I think I'll never find / Gentle love."

I'm still not sure about the lyrics in "Changes," but what I currently have is:

I knew her when summer was her crown
And autumn sighed how brown her eyes 

I knew her when winter was her cloak
In spring her voice she spoke to me

In checking my transcription, I noticed that the poetic device here isn't line-ending rhyme, but internal rhyme:  "crown" with "brown" and "cloak" with "spoke."  I also noticed that the summer/autumn couplet appears two more times than the winter/spring couplet, which - along with "Do you remember summer days just after summer rain" from "Beechwood Park" - seems to emphasize summer on the album.

"Butcher's Tale" has a very obvious domestic element:

I want to go home
Please let me go home
Go home

I'm sort of embarrassed that I didn't think of that when I initially listed instances of home in the Zombies' songs.

In "Friends of Mine," the line "It feels so good to know two people so in love, so in love" sort of parallels the line "Feels so good you're coming home soon" in "Care of Cell 44."  Both are just a single line (in "Friends of Mine," I think it's technically a pre-chorus, and I believe it constitutes the entire chorus in "Care of Cell 44"), and both mention that it "feels so good."

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I also found some things in the bonus tracks.

The line "Walk in the light of day and talk the night away" from "I'll Call You Mine" is such a perfect line.  There are two instances of internal rhyme ("walk" with "talk" [which, incidentally, is a line-ending rhyme in the bridge of "Care of Cell 44"] and "day" with "away") and a sort of parallelism with the temporal elements ("day" and "night").

From "Imagine the Swan," the line "And it's there in my room to remind me of you" seems to be an-other instance of the Zombies' remembering things in their songs.  It's "remind" instead of "remember," but it's still a similar sentiment.

I also started paying attention to the backing vocals during this section:

For the colors are gone
You've become kind of grey
And you're not like the swan
That I knew yesterday

Now the pictures are wrong
You've become kind of grey
I'll imagine the swan
That you were yesterday

During the first two lines, the backing vocals are descending (the second descent starts at a lower pitch than the first, so it's a continual descent, not just a repetition of the first descent).  During the third line, it's a single note, and during the last line, there are interruptions.  So, taken as a whole, those backing vocals indicate the decay that the lyrics themselves are talking about ("the colors are gone / You've become kind of grey").

The lyrics of "Smokey Day" are still proving to be difficult to decipher, but I did notice an instance of consonance in the line "Smokey day, hey, bring the dust of dusky evening."

And I found instances of crying and dreaming in "She Loves the Way They Love Her," although the crying seems more theatrical than emotional:

Crying, dying, sighing, whining, shining in the microphone
Dreaming dreams of future time when she and me are all alone

It's sort of obvious, but there's assonance in that first line - "crying," "dying," & "sighing" and "whining" & "shining."  That assonance is sort of present in the "time" in the second line too.

"Imagine the Swan"

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I read in the liner notes to Zombie Heaven that the first part of "Imagine the Swan" is just arpeggiated chords like in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.  So I just sat down and figured them out.  The first two chords are F major and G minor, and I think the rest of the song is in the key of F major.