I listened to The BBC Radio Sessions at the end of August and noticed some features that I'm finally getting around to writing about.
The second verse of "She's Coming Home" ("Oh, baby, baby, baby, I'll be good to you...") has softer dynamics than the first verse ("I saw her walking out the other day..."), and this matches the description "gentle" in the line "Our love was such a sweet and gentle thing."
This is also true of the studio version, but the BBC version actually has a greater change in the dynamics.
I recently wrote out the bass parts for some Zombies songs, which I'll be posting over the next few days. As always, there's the disclaimer that I may have something wrong. Here's "She's Coming Home":
I squeezed in the last four measures so I didn't have to use a second piece of paper.
I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology recently. This afternoon, I was thinking about "She's Coming Home," and realized something about this section:
Oh, baby, baby, baby, I'll be good to you
If you would only try again to love me too
Our love was such a sweet and gentle thing
I threw our love away without a thought
Unlike the first verse, which exhibits an AABB rhyme scheme, this section has an AABC rhyme scheme. That the last two lines don't rhyme illustrates in some way the singer/speaker's lack of thought.
I found two significant melismas in the first verse of "She's Coming Home." "Away" in the line "I thought my love for her had gone away" is sung with a melisma (E F# E) for a sense of movement, and "So" in the line "Well, I remember how I loved her so" is sung with a melisma (B A G#) for a sense of degree.
This week, I have the chords for "She's Coming Home" (in writing them out, I discovered that I'd actually been missing the guitar part at the end of the bridge). There are some specific rhythms for these, so it's probably the most difficult chord progression I've posted so far, but the chords themselves are pretty easy.
The bass part for this is really easy (for almost the entirety of the verses, it's just E notes), so I might try notating that (along with the organ part, which is also pretty easy) and then add the guitar chords above the staff. That would be easier to understand than just a list of chords, but it'll be awhile before I get to that, so....
The guitar comes in fairly late in the first verse. There's an initial B major at the end of the second line ("I thought my love for her had gone away") and then:
|: E major / A major :|
E major / G# minor / C# minor / B major
Choruses:
A major / C major / E major / E dominant 7 / E major
A major / C major / E major / C major
E major / C major
A major / B major / Bb major / A major
E major / A major / E major
Bridge:
C# minor / F# major / A major / B major
B major / A major / F# major / E major
There are four measures of rests in the guitar part before going back to:
|: E major / A major :|
E major / G# minor / C# minor / B major
The rhythm for the repeated |: E major / A major :| section is a lot less intensive than in the first verse. There's only one strum per measure.
The last chorus has a slightly different ending:
A major / C major / E major / E dominant 7 / E major
A major / C major / E major / C major
E major / C major
A major / B major / Bb major / A major
|: E major / A major :| E major
From Odessey and Oracle right into a 1965 radio session....
There's a slight difference in rhythm in the piano part at the very end, and the guitar part is done on electric rather than acoustic, but otherwise, this is pretty much the same as the studio recording. The organ parts in the radio version are a bit difficult to distinguish, so I just played what's on the studio recording.
Recording this brought up something that I've been wondering about for a while: there are two keyboard parts in "She's Coming Home," and I don't think they could be played simultaneously, so did Ken Jones (the Zombies' producer) play one? I vaguely remember something in the liner notes for the Beatles' Live at the BBC album saying that George Martin was going to play piano on "A Hard Day's Night" (although he got stuck in traffic or something and couldn't make it), so apparently using more musicians for radio shows was a thing that was done. And the Zombie Heaven liner notes mention Jones playing on a few other tracks (tambourine on "I Remember When I Loved Her" and piano on "Work 'N' Play"). I'm not sure if that's the case here, but the two keyboard parts seem too involved to be played simultaneously.
I actually had to record this twice. After I recorded the keyboard parts the first time, I referenced my old recording (from over a year ago!) because I couldn't quite remember a few phrases in the bass part. But my audio recording software doesn't like it when I listen to stuff while it's still open. It gets static-y. I tried working through it, but after I'd recorded the bass and guitar parts and exported the track, the later parts were very obviously not in sync with the earlier ones. So I just started all over.
I finally got around to looking into something that's been on my list since 15 October!
I don't remember the circumstances, but I got to wondering if "She's Coming Home" is like Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." There was an NPR article about it early last year, and one of Cooke's biographers briefly mentions the song's structure: "Each verse is a different movement: The strings have their movement, the horns have their movement." The melody of the verses is more-or-less the same, but the arrangement changes.
"She's Coming Home" - while it has a much simpler scope - does a similar thing. The first verse ("I saw her walking out the other day...") has piano playing the chords and rapid guitar strumming that bridges the chord changes, while the bass and drums anchor everything. But during the second verse ("Oh, baby, baby, baby, I'll be good to you..."), while the vocal melody is more-or-less the same (I haven't looked into it a great deal, but I think the phrases start on B notes instead of the E notes of the first verse), the arrangement is different. The piano plays just the bass notes (almost inaudibly; it wasn't until The Decca Stereo Anthology that I even knew the piano was still present); the organ plays the chords; and the guitar switches from the frantic strumming of the first verse to a single strum on the first beat of every bar (although it starts on the fifth measure). The bass and drums still anchor everything, but as the verse goes on, there's a significant decrescendo in the drums.
Aside from the similarity to the changing arrangement in "A Change Is Gonna Come," the differences in the arrangement reflect the lyrics. The first verse has a sort of insistence, like the re-awakened feelings of the speaker/singer after he sees a girl he used to love and realizes that he still loves her; the second has an almost tender earnestness as the singer/speaker pleads for the renewal of the relationship.
Like all of these this-song-seems-to-be-inspired-by-this-other-song posts, this is purely conjecture, but there is evidence that the Zombies knew (and still know) "A Change Is Gonna Come." In the Zombie Heaven liner notes (under "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me"), Chris White explains that "We also had a go at Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come.'" And in this interview from a few years ago, Rod Argent says that it's a song he wishes he'd written (in the section starting at about 4:30).
I listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" and transcribed the lyrics, and I noticed what might be a connection to "This Will Be Our Year," too. Every verse in "A Change Is Gonna Come" ends with "It's been a long, a long time comin', but I know a change gonna come," and every verse in "This Will Be Our Year" ends with "This will be our year, took a long time to come." Again, "This Will Be Our Year" doesn't have the social scope of "A Change Is Gonna Come," but it does have that similar structure.
According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (20 April 1965) the Zombies recorded an appearance on the Saturday Club radio show performing "You Must Believe Me," "She's Coming Home," "I Must Move," and "Just out of Reach" (tracks 13-16 on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven). The show was broadcast on 1 May 1965.
According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (20 April 1965) the Zombies recorded an appearance on the Saturday Club radio show performing "You Must Believe Me," "She's Coming Home," "I Must Move," and "Just out of Reach" (tracks 13-16 on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven). The show was broadcast on 1 May 1965.
According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (9 April 1965), "She's Coming Home" b/w "I Must Move" and Begin Here were released in the UK.
Russo's Collector's Guide confirms the release of "She's Coming Home" b/w "I Must Move" (Decca F. 12125), but it lists the UK release of Begin Here (Decca LK 4697) as 30 April.
Yester-day, I figured out the chords for the verses of "Christmas for the Free." I used Argent's original version, but I'm fairly certain the Zombies' version from Breathe Out, Breathe In uses the same chords.
I also figured out one phrase, and it contains Argent's characteristic sequential half-steps, although there're four notes this time: B, C, C#, D.
Anyway, the interesting thing: part of this chord progression has a descending bass part that's achieved through 7ths, which is the same thing that Rod Argent does in "She's Coming Home" and "I Want Her She Wants Me." I've written about this before, but not at the length that it really deserves.
Like I mentioned in that post, according to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Rod Argent took part of the chord progression for "She's Coming Home" from Howells' Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. Last summer - after writing that post I just linked to - I got a copy of this. I didn't find the phrase then, but I listened to it this morning, and I think I've discovered it in the "Gloria Patri” from the Magnificat section. It's the part that corresponds to "Holy Ghost" in the text.
So now I'm fairly confident that the section of "She's Coming Home" that Argent took from Howells is that descending bass part achieved through 7ths. In "She's Coming Home," it's E major, E major 7th (although played the same as an inverted G# minor), and then C# minor. To complete that phrase in "She's Coming Home," there's a B major, but I don't think that same phrasing is in Howells' Magnificat (also, I think Howells starts on F major, so his progression is half a step higher).
Like I mentioned last summer, that same sort of thing is in the bridge of "I Want Her She Wants Me." There's a difference I didn't notice though: that's a dominant 7th. (G major, G major dominant 7th, Eb major, Eb major 7th) That descending bass part is still achieved (G, F, Eb, D), but the intervals aren't the same as the descending bass part in "She's Coming Home" (E, D#, C#, B).
"Christmas for the Free" features this same descending bass through 7ths. It's A major, A major 7th (or an inverted C#m, which - incidentally - is a chord change present in "This Will Be Our Year"), F# minor, F# minor 7th (which I think is equivalent to an inverted A major - E, [F], A, C#). So, like "She's Coming Home," you get those same descending intervals (A, G#, F#, E).
What's more interesting: "Christmas for the Free" uses the same descent that Howells has (assuming I've identified the correct phrase in Howells' Magnificat), and the Magnificat is Mary's response a while after the angel announces to her that she will bear God's Son - an event that culminates in Christmas (the Magnificat actually occurs when she visits her sister; see the first two chapters of Luke for more on this). So - provided I have that phrase sussed out and traced the history from "She's Coming Home" to "Christmas for the Free" right - the Christmas element of "Christmas for the Free" inadvertently continues that inspiration from Howells.
According to the liner notes from both Zombie Heaven and The Decca Stereo Anthology, fifty years ago to-day (2 March 1965), the Zombies recorded "I Want You Back Again" (the single version with the working title "Somebody Help Me"), "I Must Move" (with the working title "I Believe in You"), "She's Coming Home" (with the working title "I Cry No More"), and "Just out of Reach."
Thinking about how the tonic chord is the "home" for whatever key the song is in brought me to the Zombies' common theme of home. So, naturally, I started thinking about the lines that contain "home" and how/if the tonic chord relates, and "She's Coming Home" and "Care of Cell 44" were the songs that came to mind.
I've compared these before, and "Care of Cell 44" seemed to come out on top, but as far as the relationship between the tonic chord and instances of "home" in the lyrics, "She's Coming Home" is actually better. In the lead vocals, "home" appears only in the chorus:
But she sent word to me She's coming home And so I'll cry no more I'll dry my tears She's coming home to me She's coming home to me
It's in the backing vocals once - in the line "Baby, come on home" after "Well, I remember how I loved her so" in the lead vocals in the first verse.
Each time "home" appears in the lyrics, the accompanying chord is E major - the tonic chord. During the chorus, the chord progression rises to that E major, emphasizing the return.
In "Care of Cell 44," the word "home" appears only in the chorus (if, indeed, it is a chorus; it's only one line, after all):
Feels so good you're coming home soon
There are multiple chords beneath it, but none of them are the tonic (G major). It starts on E minor (the submediant and relative minor), then holds out through D major (the dominant), and then C major (the subdominant) before the "soon" comes in on B minor (the mediant).
Like the imperfect rhymes that the mellotron emphasizes and the nostalgic and subjunctive elements in the bridge ("We'll walk in a way we used to walk / And it could be so nice…"), the lack of the tonic chord's accompanying "home" in the lyrics seems to indicate that there's something off about the relationship described.
There are other instances of "home" in the Zombies' lyrics, but these two songs are the only ones I've looked into so far.
When I wrote that giant post about the bass lines in "Care of Cell 44" and "She's Coming Home," I went back to the songs to verify some things. And I noticed that there're a few extra bass notes transitioning from the chorus of "She's Coming Home" into the bridge. I knew about the transitional notes from the bridge to the second verse, but I'd missed the ones going into the bridge.
Also, I reversed the process I did for figuring out the organ notes - I split the stereo track and put the left channel into mono, and I discovered that there's a piano part during that second verse. It's just the E notes that are also in the bass part. There're really slight though, almost as if they were being mixed out (mine are too noticeable here, but I did the best I could). I think it works better without that piano part, but I'm trying to be accurate with these.
Now I want to go through the whole Decca Stereo Anthology, split all the tracks and listen to the left and right channels individually.
I was thinking about the thematic similarities between songs again, specifically "She's Coming Home" and "Care of Cell 44." Both are about a girl's returning home to a guy. But, musically, the homecoming in "Care of Cell 44" is more exciting than that in "She's Coming Home" because the bass lines during the verses of "Care of Cell 44" are (mostly) diatonic, where the bass part during the verses of "She's Coming Home" just sits on an E note until the second half of the last line. It's only during the choruses and the bridge that it moves, and even then, it's usually the root of whatever chord is on top of it. The bass part for "Care of Cell 44" is almost constantly moving and doesn't hold so strictly to the root note of the overlaying chords.
The speaker/singer of "She's Coming Home" seems to be stationary, indicated by the line "She sent word to me" (which, admittedly, is in the chorus, rather than the bass-stationary verses), where the speaker/singer of "Care of Cell 44" is mobile, indicated by the line "Come up and fetch you, saved up for the train fare money." So he's actively involved in reuniting with his girl, where the speaker/singer of "She's Coming Home" is just sitting there, waiting for his girl to return to him. Both of these positions seem to be indicated by the fluidity - or lack thereof - of the accompanying bass parts.
The bass part in "Care of Cell 44" does just sit on a G note during the bridge ("We'll walk in a way we used to walk / And it could be so nice…"), but there it sort of mirrors the speaker/singer's wish to revive the frozen past. He's looking back nostalgically ("in a way we used to walk") and forward hypothetically, hence the future tense ("we'll walk") and the subjunctive case ("it could be so nice").
This nostalgia-accompanied-by-a-static-bass-note sort of appears (figuratively, of course) in the second verse of "She's Coming Home" too (the verse with chordal organ accompaniment). There's the nostalgia in the line "Our love was such a sweet and gentle thing," which is accompanied by the bass playing only E notes. Musically, the second verse isn't very different from the first - it has the same chords and bass part; it's just that the chords are played on organ and guitar rather than on piano, as in the first verse - so the nostalgia-accompanied-by-a-static-bass-note works better in "Care of Cell 44," where the static bass part occurs only during the part where the lyrics involve that nostalgia. That way, it's musically distinct.
After that part in "She's Coming Home," there's the line "I threw our love away without a thought," where the bass plays the recurring descending phrase in the song (E, D#, C#, B), sort of reflecting the throwing away mentioned in the line (it doesn't quite match up to the lyrics).
Most of the bass part in "Care of Cell 44" is also descending, but there are rapid ascending phrases after them (plus the recurring and mostly upward-moving phrase that - on piano - opens the song), almost to reflect the song as a whole: the sadness of the girl's going to prison and being separated from the speaker/singer followed by the joy of the anticipated reunion.
It's probably just that Rod Argent got better writing bass parts between the time of "She's Coming Home" and "Care of Cell 44" (they're two years apart - March 1965 & August 1967), but it has an interesting meaning when looked at without that real-world, behind-the-scenes factor.
Of course, there's also the (very likely) possibility that I'm just looking at this too closely and ascribing too much importance to certain musical elements.
Also, can I just draw attention to the line "Kiss and make up, and it will be so nice" in "Care of Cell 44"? I didn't pay much attention to it the first few hundred times I listened to the song (I usually pay attention to the music, not the lyrics), but it seems that the speaker/singer is in some way responsible for the girl's imprisonment.
It turns out I grossly neglected the organ parts in "She's Coming Home." I thought only the middle part had organ, which is hilariously wrong now that I know otherwise. I think in some of the beginning parts, it's the same as the backing vocals, but I'd have to listen to both again to compare it.
This isn't the best recording, performance-wise. My piano playing is mediocre (as always), my organ playing actually has too much legato in some parts, and some of the E major chords on guitar during the middle part are a bit twangy because I accidentally ran my finger into the high E string. (I improved the accuracy of that part too. I'd thought those guitar chords were present during the whole middle part, but they're not.) Also, I think I missed a bass note near the end.
I find it a bit odd that the organ part doesn't copy the whole E D E G A B A# A phrase. It cuts off after the B. I'm not sure if that phrase is repeated on organ at the very end either, but I included it anyway.
I took the stereo version of "She's Coming Home" from The Decca Stereo Anthology, split the two channels, and put the right channel in mono in order to hear the organ parts better. It's still hard to make out some things, but I feel a bit better having corrected my oversight to some degree.
I just spent about an hour trying to figure out the chords for "I Want Her She Wants Me" (it did not seem to last that long). I'm really close to having the whole thing. I think there's only one chord I have left to figure out, but for now I'm stumped on it.
But I learned some really interesting things. Fascinating, even.
At the beginning of the "She told me to be careful if I loved her" part, the chords go from G to G7, which is the same transition at the end of "Care of Cell 44." Normally, I wouldn't place such importance on this because it's just a transition from one chord to an-other. However, that bridge part also contains a transition from Cm to G, which is also a change in "Care of Cell 44" (and which also appears in the bridge). Not surprisingly, both songs are (mostly) in the same key - G major. For a while I've been wondering whether part of the cohesion of Odessey and Oracle might be just from the keys that the songs are in. Most of the first side is in G major.
The bridge also contains a chord change from Eb to Gm. The Gm is the second inversion (or at least I play it that way), so the transition is basically lowering the tonic in Eb by a half-step (Eb G Bb > D G Bb). That same change is in "She's Coming Home" (although a half-step higher - from E to G#m). In the liner notes to Zombie Heaven, Rod Argent explains that he took part of the chord progression for "She's Coming Home" from Howells' "Nunc Dimittis." I'm not sure, but I think the chord progression in question is E G#m C#m B, which includes the chord change also present in "I Want Her She Wants Me." Most of "She's Coming Home" is just an alternation between E and A (throwing a C in between them during the chorus), so unless it's the very end of the chorus (B, Bb, A, which is characteristic of Argent's writing in that it includes two sequential half-steps) or the bridge (C#m F# A B), the E G#m C#m B progression is what Argent took from Howells. If I'm right in that, it's interesting that that particular progression (or at least part of it) makes its appearance in two of Argent's songs. If I'm wrong, it's still interesting that he uses the same transition in two different songs.
I think I've got the last part of this figured out, and I also learned the bass part. It's pretty much follows the piano part except for a four-note phrase before the organ comes in.
I think there's only one song I figured out faster than this one, which was the Searchers' "Ain't Gonna Kiss Ya," which took an hour or two. This took about a week.
