"It's Alright with Me"

The Zombies' social media accounts have been posting about "It's Alright with Me" quite a bit lately, and as I was thinking about the song yester-day, I had a few realizations about it.

The recurring line "But if you want to stay around and love me" is sung to far fewer pitches than the surrounding lines (it simply alternates between Eb and F), and in a way, this narrow scope reflects the "stay[ing] around."

That the first verse and the third verse use the same sound for their rhymes ("door" with "floor" and "poor" with "door," respectively) poetically represents the narrator's limited means.

The phrase "mess around" in the first line may indicate Ray Charles' influence, specifically his "Mess Around," in which this phrase frequently recurs.  "It's Alright with Me" is in C minor, and if I'm not mistaken, "Mess Around" is in Eb major, so the two songs are in relative keys.

"It's Alright with Me"

In "It's Alright with Me," the tempo slows for the bridge, and in a way, this slower tempo represents being "tired," although perhaps in a more literal sense than it's used in the lyrics ("I'm sick and tired of being on my own").

When I watched the new lyric video yester-day, I also noticed that the repetition involved in the alliterative "big black" ("I got no money, can't afford no big black car") provides a slight sense of this large size.

"It's Alright with Me"

I watched the Zombies concert from Abbey Road on its anniversary on the 18th, and at some point since then, I had the notion that there's some similarity between "It's Alright with Me" and "I Want You Back Again."  The lyrics of the two songs don't have much in common, though (both rhyme "on my own" with "alone"); maybe the similarity I was thinking of is just that both songs are in C minor.*  In any case, as I was looking at the lyrics of "It's Alright with Me," I noticed some significance in the structure.

The couplet "But if you want to stay around and love me / You know it's alright with me" recurs at the end of each verse, providing a sense of the constancy of "stay[ing] around."

The rhyme scheme of the verses is AABB (if rhyming "me" with itself counts), but in the bridge, this is replaced with ABA ("I'm sick and tired of being on my own / But you know I'll take nobody / Who's gonna leave me tired and alone").  Unlike in the verses, the sequential lines don't rhyme, so there's a sense of the isolation of "being on my own."

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*As I've noted before, though, the version of "I Want You Back Again" on Still Got That Hunger is in D minor.

"It's Alright with Me"

I was thinking about "It's Alright with Me" yester-day and realized that the line "I got a leak in my bucket and a great big hole in my floor" contains a sort of merism.  The "leak in my bucket" implies a small hole, and this contrasts with the "great big hole."  Naming these two opposites indicates the variety or range of ways in which the narrator is "a man that's poor."

"It's Alright with Me"

Since the 12th was the 55th anniversary of the Zombies' first (proper) studio session (on 12 June 1964), I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology.

I noticed a small thing in "It's Alright with Me."  "Far" in the line "My bank account won't see me very far" is sung with a melisma (Eb C, I think), musically giving something of a sense of distance.  It's negated in the lyric though, so perhaps it's appropriate that the interval is only a minor third.

"It's Alright with Me"

For the last couple weeks, I've been intermittently notating the bass part for "It's Alright with Me."  I finally finished it last week.  As always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong.  I'm not as confident about the part after the tempo transition (specifically the measure with three quarter notes divided by eighth rests) as I am about everything else.

"It's Alright with Me"

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Because I'll be focusing on the Begin Here sessions for the next week or so, I thought I'd actually listen to Begin Here.  The CD copy I have has bonus tracks, the first of which is "It's Alright with Me."  I noticed something about the first line of the last verse:  "So you see I can only offer a man that's poor."

It might be a bit pedantic, but I'm in favor of "that" for things and "who" for people as far as relative clauses go.  If you follow that rule, here, there's a "that" where there should be a "who."  The speaker/singer is devaluing himself, which seems to go along with the other not-so-positive qualities he chooses to mention, like the "frost and debt and trouble" in the next line.  Actually, having that second "and" there emphasizes it too.  "Frost, debt, and trouble" would be understandable, but "Frost and debt and trouble" has an insistence because of that repeated "and" (although meter and/or syllable count for the line might figure into that too).

"It's Alright with Me"

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I planned it so that I'd do "It's Alright with Me" to-day because it's Rod Argent's birthday and (if I remember correctly), aside from a song that he wrote for the Bluetones (Jim Rodford's group), this is the first song he wrote.

I'm fairly certain that last time I recorded this, I had two guitar tracks.  One with just that melodic line and the other with the chords.  This time, I did all the guitar parts in one track.  It took awhile to record (something like four or five takes), same for the bass part.  It's not that they're difficult to play or that I don't remember the parts; I guess it's just that haven't played them for so long.

I'm still not sure if the rhythm of the guitar chords is right, but I could probably say that for every song I've recorded for this project.

"Tell Her No" b/w "What More Can I Do"

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According to Greg Russo's Time of the Season: The Zombies Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (29 January 1965), "Tell Her No" b/w "What More Can I Do" was released in the U.K. (F.12071).

An EP titled "The Zombies" ("Kind of Girl," "Sometimes" / "It's Alright with Me," "Summertime") was also released in the U.K. (DFE 8598).

Chronology

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I've been going through the chronology in the liner notes to Zombie Heaven and the updated chronology in the liner notes of The Decca Stereo Anthology because a lot of important 50th anniversaries of Zombies-related things are coming up and I'd like to be able to schedule posts about them, and I discovered something weird.

The Zombie Heaven liner notes list two different dates for the demo session (yielding "Summertime" and "It's Alright with Me") at Jackson's Studio in Rickmansworth.  The chronology lists it as 19 April, but in the entry for the demo version of "Summertime" included on disc three, it lists the recording date as 29 April (both dates in 1964).

Interestingly, Odessey and Oracle was released on 19 April 1968, so for the sake of continuity, it'd be interesting if they really did record those demos on 19 April.  That way, the Zombies as a recording entity both begin and end on 19 April - from the demo session for "Summertime" and "It's Alright with Me" to the release of Odessey and Oracle.

I'll have to do some more research though.

First Session at Decca

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The Zombies favorited and re-tweeted my tweet!

"It's Alright with Me"

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I learned the bass part for this back in March, and I'd already known the chords and the riff for some time before then.

"It's Alright with Me" / "Don't Cry for Me"

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I think I just learned the bass part for "It's Alright with Me."  It's pretty fun, but also slightly exhausting.  I hadn't noticed this until I really started paying attention to it, but contained within it is the really common bass line from the 1950s.

I also learned the bass part for "Don't Cry for Me," which is really easy.  Except for one part, all of the bass notes are the root of whatever chord they're played beneath.