"It's Magical" b/w "Summersong"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (24 May 1974), Colin Blunstone's "It's Magical" b/w "Summersong" (Epic S EPC 2413) was released in the U.K.

"It's Magical"

Part of a line in "It's Magical" is "I bless the day you came along."  I think this may be inspired by the Everly Brothers and their song "Let It Be Me," which starts with a similar line:  "I bless the day I found you."  It's worth noting that "It's Magical" was written by Russ Ballard.

For what it's worth:  in Claes Johansen's The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream, Chris White calls the Everly Brothers "the most underrated influence on modern music" (page 58).

Journey

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Colin Blunstone's Journey was released in the UK to-day in 1974, so I listened to it.  (I've started doing this thing where I listen to the albums on their release dates in order to become more familiar with them.  Otherwise, I don't listen to some that often.)  In listening to it, I found a lot of interesting things.

I talked about some of the structure of "Wonderful" back in November, but I found two more things.  First, the progression between two lines in iterations of the bridge (possibly not really a bridge; I don't know how to classify it).  "I need you more than ever now, my love" becomes "I want you more than ever now, my love."  Interestingly, this same sort of thing is in a line from "Shadow of a Doubt" - "You're the very last thing I want; the first thing that I need."

Second - and not as interesting - there's also alliteration in the line "High in the hall."

There's a slight lyrical resemblance between "Beginning" and "Maybe after He's Gone."  "Beginning" has the line "Oh, self-doubt surrounds you in the night," and "Maybe after He's Gone" has "Night surrounds me."  I'm not sure, but the line "Let us begin by beginning" might also reference the Zombies' album Begin Here.

"Keep the Curtains Closed Today" contains some typical Zombie themes of home and crying.  There are the lines "Could this be just the start of coming home" and "Just wish you well and hope that we don't cry."

"Beware" also mentions typical themes of dreams, memories, and crying (tears):

So hard to be alone with these forgotten dreams
No bitterness could drive away the tears
No other one will take the place you have inside
I know the memories will last a million years

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, "Beware" was written by Argent and White (they also wrote "Wonderful").

I think it's also interesting that both iterations in the chorus of "Beware" have a word that doesn't fit into the rhyme scheme.  The first iteration:

Beware as you wander through the years
Beware that you keep your heart from fears
Take care, my love, to share your love
And though the road's been long
I'll say goodbye, and I was wrong
And I've been lovin' you too long
But now I love you more than ever so beware

And the second iteration:

Beware and I know your heart can sing
Beware for I wish your everything
Take care, my love, to share your love
And though the road's been long
I'll say goodbye, and I was wrong
And I've been lovin' you too long
But now I love you more than ever so beware, my love

In both, "your love" doesn't really fit with the pattern.  There's "years," "fears," the outlier "love," and then "long," "wrong," and "long."  The second iteration keeps the last three but switches the first group to "sing," "everything," and - again - the outlier "love."  It seems like it should be two groups of three and then the final line, but - perhaps significantly - the love doesn't cooperate.

"It's Magical" and "You Who Are Lonely" both contain lines about dreams.  "It's Magical" has "And when I go to sleep / All the dreams of you are mine to keep," but the dream reference in "You Who Are Lonely" is much more interesting.  The complete verse:

And a home without love
Is no home at all
I'm hanging on to a dream
Waiting to fall

There's the bit about home common to Zombies songs, but the line with the dream has "hanging on to," which immediately brought the Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream" to mind.  The last two verses of "Hung up on a Dream" seem to describe what the speaker/singer in "You Who Are Lonely" has lost:

They spoke with soft, persuading words
About a living creed of gentle love
And turned me on to sounds unheard
And showed me strangest, clouded sights above 

Which gentled touched my aching mind
And soothed the wanderings of my troubled brain
Sometimes I think I'll never find
Such purity and peace of mind again

Like the "love" in "Beware," "You Who Are Lonely" seems to have a significant inconsistency in that there's a line missing in the choruses:

You, you who are lonely know
How slowly time can go
When winds of sadness blow 

You, you who are lonely see
To be alone is not to be free
Nobody knows like me
And you who are lonely

There isn't a line to complete the first quatrain, as if to mirror the speaker/singer's lack of companionship.