"Summertime"

I recently listened to Gershwin's Porgy & Bess performed by the Bethlehem Orchestra.  In that version of "Summertime," "wings" in the line "Then you're gonna spread your wings and take to the sky" is sung with a melisma, lending a sense of this "spread[ing]."  While this articulation isn't present in the Zombies' version, I realized that there's an-other musical feature that provides a similar effect:  after "spread your wings," the bass plays a group of notes that span a sixth (A D E F).

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

I was thinking about "I Want Her She Wants Me" last week, and I realized that one section of the bass part at the beginning of the song is similar to a section of the bass part in "Summertime."

Notating the bass part in the introduction to "I Want Her She Wants Me" is still beyond me, but the first few phrases fit nicely in 3/4 (the majority of the song is in 4/4, though):

where the first G in each measure is a hammer-on.

In "Summertime," there are some very similar phrases, first occurring at ~0:23, under the "high" of "and the cotton is high":

where the first E in each measure is a hammer-on.

The interval between the two pitches in "I Want Her She Wants Me" is a half-step, and the interval between the two pitches in "Summertime" is a whole step, but otherwise, these figures are the same.  In both songs, the figure also occurs three times in succession.

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This similarity between the bass parts reminded me of a similarity between the backing vocals that I noted years ago.  I revisited the parts and improved my accuracy, but I'm still not sure I have everything note-perfect.

The backing vocal in "Summertime" is something like:

It's a bit different the second time.  Instead of just E F# in the last line, the E F# G# F# figure is repeated.

The backing vocals in "I Want Her She Wants Me" are something like:

Common to both is the sequence E F# G(#) F# in fairly even note values.

"Summertime"

When I transferred my old posts here, I noticed that I'd made some mistakes in my notation of the bass part in "Summertime."  I still think I have the right pitches, but I had some wrong note values.  I was under the mistaken impression that the length of a whole note is equal to the number of beats in a measure no matter what the time signature is, but whole notes are actually equal to four beats.  Where I had whole notes (four beats), I should have had dotted half notes (three beats).

Recently, I re-wrote the notation to correct my mistake, and I added in the guitar chords.  However, this still comes with the disclaimer that I might have something wrong:

"Summertime"

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This is now the 52nd anniversary of the Zombies' first session for Decca (on 12 June 1964).  I started with "Summertime" because I've been posting some form of notation (up to this point, it's been only chords) every Sunday and I can combine that with this anniversary.  Because I wrote out the bass part to "Summertime" in notation:

I mentioned this before, but when I was started writing this out, I discovered that I'd been playing some E and B notes in the wrong octave.  In the last measure of the first line, an erased E an octave lower is still faintly visible.  I'm pretty sure that now I have this right.

Because I corrected those notes and put them in the right octave, I also discovered some typical Argent three-note chromatic phrases.  And since I wrote out the notation, I can just say, "Look at the second and third measures of the third line."  It's E Db D.

I should really start trying to learn the electric piano part now....

"Summertime"

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Before I even queued the post with the chords for "Summertime," I started writing out the bass part in notation.  In doing so, I realized that I've been playing the E and B notes in the wrong octave for something like three years.  I fixed that in the notation I'm writing out (which I'll post at some point), and I would record a new version, but the anniversary of the original recording is in about three weeks (12 June), so I'll just wait for that.

"Summertime"

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Here are the chords for "Summertime."

There's the introductory electric piano part, and then the bass has a section almost all to itself (there's a bit of sustain from the electric piano part) before the guitar and drums come in.  For that part, there's an introductory A minor / E major / B minor / E major before the verse properly starts (although the vocals start on that last E major).

Verses:

|: A minor / E major / B minor / E major :|

D minor / F major / E major

|: A minor / E major / B minor / E major :|

C major / A minor / F major

A minor / E major / B minor / E major

During the electric piano solo:

A minor / D minor / A minor

C major / A minor / F major

A minor / E major / B minor / E major

After the final verse, there's another section of A minor / E major / B minor / E major before resolving on A minor.

"I Want Her She Wants Me"

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When I was learning the bass part for the demo version of "Summertime" last week, I started paying attention to the backing vocals.  The backing vocals in the demo version are actually more complex than those in the final studio version, but I found something interesting that's present in both.

I figured out and notated (I think correctly) the backing vocals for the studio version:

It occurs to me that "backing vocals, second verse" is sort of superfluous because there aren't any backing vocals for the first verse.  You might be able to see a bunch of eraser marks because the higher range of treble clef still gives me difficulties in notation; I had to re-do all of this because I did it wrong the first time.

What caught my attention here is the melody in the first four bars (the repeated E F# G# F#).  This sounded familiar because a very similar melody is in the backing vocals for "I Want Her She Wants Me":

Again, the "backing vocals, second verse" is superfluous because the first verse has no backing vocals (which is a similarity in itself).  Also, I'm not certain of the quarter rest or bottom harmony here; I might be misconstruing the harmony with the bass part.

Starting in the third measure, there's the phrase E F# G F#.  They're half notes where the phrase in "Summertime" is whole notes, but that and a half step (G instead of G#) are the only differences, even though "Summertime" is in A minor and "I Want Her She Wants Me" is in G major.

The more I got thinking about this, the more I started to convince myself that "Summertime" was floating around Rod Argent's head as he wrote this (even if it was just a subconscious influence).  I found some (admittedly slight) lyrical similarities too.  The first line of "Summertime" is "It's summertime, and the livin' is easy," and "I Want Her She Wants Me" has some similar lines in "I sleep so easy" and "And life seems kind now."

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, "I Want Her She Wants Me" was "written and demo'ed by the band almost a year prior [to its recording] in September 1966."  Rod Argent was certainly thinking about "Summertime" when he was writing "Time of the Season," since he's admitted in interviews that "Who's your daddy? / Is he rich like me?" is a nod to "Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good-lookin'" in "Summertime," but "Time of the Season" seems to be one of the last songs written for Odessey and Oracle, with some accounts of Argent still working on it the morning before it was recorded, so I'm not sure how convincing that is as evidence.

"Summertime" [demo version]

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To-day in 1964, the Zombies recorded a demo of "Summertime."  As far as the parts I know, it's pretty much the same as the version they recorded at their first Decca session on 12 June.  The electric piano solo is longer, and Paul Atkinson's guitar sounds more electric than acoustic (he used the same guitar for most of the Decca sessions, but he had an electrified acoustic guitar, so he could get different sounds out of it).

While learning the bass part during the solo, the backing vocals caught my attention, and I discovered some really interesting things about them (specifically, how they seem to have influenced a later Zombies song).  In order to write about that properly though, I need to work on some notation, so it'll be a few days before I get around to it (plus I still have things that I noticed when I recorded my annual Odessey and Oracle that I need to write about).

Also while learning the bass part during the solo, I discovered I had one part wrong in the studio version.  I think a fair bit has been written about its being in 6/8, but I think it's actually in 3/4.  In any case, the rhythms seem like they would be relatively easy to notate, so at some point, I'd like to do that too.

"Summertime"

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I listened to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess yester-day, so I started thinking about "Summertime," particularly the first line:  "It's summertime, and the livin' is easy."  It occurred to me that in the Zombies' version, there's a vocal glissando during that "easy," so there's a sort of melodic ease to which that word is sung.  I just went through about a dozen versions of "Summertime" that I have, and with two exceptions, none of them have that glissando.  (And neither of those two glissandi are very similar to the Zombies'.)  So while it's not unique to their version, it seem like it might be original.

Also, I got to thinking about the story that Argent's frequently told about how the line "Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good-lookin'" inspired the "Who's your daddy / Is he rich?" in "Time of the Season."  I think I found a few other lyrical nods to "Summertime" in "Time of the Season."  Both have a temporal element in their title and lyrics ("Summertime" and "Time of the Season," although Argent's also told the story about how he got the phrase "Time of the Season" from mishearing the lyrics in a Miracles' song), and both describe something as "high."  "Summertime" has "the cotton is high," and the "time of the season" in "Time of the Season" is "When love runs high."  There's a slightly different meaning there, but it's the same word in a similar description.

I would have thought those merely coincidental similarities were it not for Argent's admission of that "Your daddy's rich"/"Who's your daddy / Is he rich?" reference.

"Summertime"

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I'm not sure if I played the very last guitar notes right.  I know it's a slow arpeggiation of A minor, but I'm not sure which notes exactly.

Also, I've been thinking about what I'm doing, and I'm not sure if it's really worth it just to re-record versions of all of these if I know the parts already.  So I'm going to postpone this for now, and for the next group of recorded songs ("Kind of Girl," "Sometimes," "Woman," and "Leave Me Be," recorded 31 August and 5 September), I'm going to try to learn some more parts before I record them.  So I guess I'm turning this re-record-the-catalogue project into the same thing I do with Odessey and Oracle* - record a version each year and hope that I've learned some more parts in the meantime.  I'll add more songs as the 50th anniversaries of their recordings come around, so I'll have a few coming up next week.



*Incidentally, I've been thinking of moving my Odessey and Oracle recordings to 19 April (because that's when the album was released) instead of early January.

"Summertime"

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A few months ago, I realized something singular about the Zombies' version of "Summertime."  And when I say "singular," I mean both interesting and individual; there's an element that isn't present in any of the ten other versions of "Summertime" that I have.

It's the addition of the "there" in the last line of the second verse:

One of these mornings, you're gonna wake up singin'
Then you're gonna spread your wings and take to the sky
But 'til that morning, there ain't nothin', nothin' gonna harm you
With your mommy and daddy, there standing by

When I originally transcribed "Summertime," I wrote that line as "With your mommy and daddy; they're standing by."  There's a slight caesura there, and I guess I thought that it signified the completion of "there ain’t nothin' gonna harm you / With your mommy and daddy," so that "they're standing by" stood by itself.

It makes more sense as "there standing by," but I think "they're" could also be argued for.  It's an interesting lyrical ambiguity, and that "there"/"they're" isn't present in any of the other versions of "Summertime" that I have, including versions by Anne Brown (and since Brown played Bess in the original production of Porgy & Bess, from which "Summertime" comes, her version is pretty much the original), Abbie Mitchell, Betty Roché (by whom I have a complete version and two reprises, although only one of those reprises contains the lines in question), Billie Holiday, The Platters, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs (which, as an instrumental version, doesn't include any lyrics), Sam Cooke (by whom I actually have two different versions), and Brian Wilson (from the Reimagines Gershwin album).

One of the Sam Cooke versions approaches the "there"/"they're" ambiguity.  After completing the second verse ("With your daddy and mommy standin' by"), he goes into vocal riffs using some of the phrases from those first two verses, including "They're standin' by."

"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!

"Summertime"

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I've been working on and practicing "She's Coming Home" lately, but a part of the bass part is similar to part of the bass part in "Summertime" (and part of the bass part in "She's Not There") (did I use part enough?).

So I got thinking about the bass part of "Summertime," and I thought the chords would be pretty easy to figure out from it, and they were.  The rhythm is a bit difficult though, which is why I come in a bit late and have some problems with the last part.

Also, it's timely that I figured this out now, as to-morrow is the 50th anniversary (12 June 1964) of the Zombies' recording this song (along with "She's Not There," "You Make Me Feel Good," and "It's Alright with Me").

"Summertime"

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Two days ago, I learned the first part of the bass part for "Summertime."  I figured out the part that goes with the solo this evening, so now I know the whole thing.