"Christmas for the Free"

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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.

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Oh, and this is a new one in the catalogue.

In Deep

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I listened to Argent's In Deep to-day because according to Russo's Collector's Guide, it came out to-day in 1973.  And I noticed things!

"God Gave Rock and Roll to You"

There's some really obvious alliteration in this that I'd missed.  It's in the title line ("God gave rock and roll to you") and the second line of the first verse ("Love your life and love your labor"), which actually exhibits a sort of parallel alliteration.

There's parallel structure in the line "Don't step on snails, don't climb in trees."

"Losing Hold"

There's some parallelism in different iterations of the chorus in "Losing Hold":

I'm losing hold
Let my fingers slide
I see you slowly close your eyes on me
I'll keep mine open wide

And later:

I'm losing hold
Let my fingers slide
I've watched you slowly take the day from me
I'll keep the night to hide

To some degree, this parallelism connects "your eyes" with "the day."

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I found a structure that connects "It's Only Money, Pt. 2," "Be Glad," and "Rosie."  Each has a section where a line is repeated twice and then there's an-other line.

"It's Only Money, Pt. 2":

It's only money
It's only money
It's only money
Ain't it funny when you want it you ain't got it

"Be Glad":

Be glad
Be glad
Be glad
Oh, be glad

"Rosie":

Rosie
Rosie
Rosie
What have I got to do?

—

Somewhat similarly, there's a lyrical connection between "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and "Be Glad."  "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" mentions that God "put [rock and roll] in the soul of everyone," and "Be Glad" continues that idea with "So throw the music in your soul to Heaven."

Like the similar structures in "It's Only Money, Pt. 2," "Be Glad," and "Rosie," including that idea of music in the soul in both "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and "Be Glad" makes for a more unified album.

[I learned a couple parts too, and I'll get around to posting those in the next few days.  I discovered something really interesting about "Christmas for the Free" that deserves its own post and audio example.]

"A Sign from Me to You"

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Last night, I figured out the guitar part from Colin Blunstone's "A Sign from Me to You."  This is just the part at the end, but the phrase is the same as that in the middle (except that this resolves on C# where the other ends on a D; I didn't mention this earlier, but there's a Picardy third at the end).  I didn't feel like setting up everything to record acoustic guitar, so I did the rhythm guitar part on electric.  Also, I stuck a glissando where there shouldn't be one.  The more I listen to the original recording, I think it should be double-tracked too.

"I Must Move"

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For whatever reason, I was thinking about "I Must Move" this morning, and I realized something interesting about the first lines of the verses.  There's alliteration in the first line of the first two verses ("You've known me no more than just a few days" and "No, I won't stop, won't stay, and you must know in truth"), but it's lacking in the first line of the third verse ("Take a good look at yourself and at me").

(There is assonance in "good look," which is similar to alliteration, but it's a different technique.)

That lack of alliteration seems to reflect how the speaker/singer is trying to extract himself from this situation.  It's also illustrated in re-stating the preposition:  it's "at yourself and at me" not "at yourself and me."  The syllable count probably has something to do with that too, but it shows that there's a distance between "yourself" and "me."

"Maybe after He's Gone" and "Beechwood Park"

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A few days ago, I remembered something about "Maybe after He's Gone" and "Beechwood Park" that I'd neglected to write about.

After I figured out the vocal melody in "Maybe after He's Gone," I realized that - combined with the chromatic phrase in the backing vocals - it sort of forms a Bsus4.  The "gone" in the lead vocals is on a B, and the backing vocals go from an E to a Db, so it's like going from Bsus4 to B major, just without the F#.  (Since Blunstone has such a high voice, that B might be above the E and Db, in which case it's just an inversion.)

That same chord change - Bsus4 to B major - is in the guitar part in "Beechwood Park."  It roughly corresponds to the "lanes" in the line "When all the air was damp and warm in the green of country lanes."

It's a pretty minor element to be comparing, but both "Maybe after He's Gone" and "Beechwood Park" are Chris White songs (incidentally to-day's his birthday) and they're sequential songs on the album, so while it might be minor, I don't think it's insignificant.

"Changes"

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When I had an idle moment yester-day, I played a few Zombies things on the piano.  While playing just the right hand of the mellotron part from the beginning of "Changes," I noticed that there are sequential half-steps in it.

It corresponds to the phrase "in spring her voice she" in the lyrics.  The "in spring" is G to F#, and "her voice she" is B C B, which - incidentally - is the same sort of trill that's in "Beechwood Park" and "Hung up on a Dream," among others.  (In the mellotron parts at the beginning and end, I think that F# is sustained through that B C B part.)

I don't think I've run into too many half-steps in White's writing (I can't remember any at least); they're more common in Argent's writing.  Argent usually links them in the middle (so that A to A# and A# to B combine into A to A# to B - a three-note chromatic phrase), which isn't the case here.  It's interesting that while this is still the same sort of technique, it doesn't really resemble Argent's half-steps.  They're half-steps, but they're not linked.

Top Gear

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Verulam Cover Project:

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (26 February 1965), the Zombies recorded "Rip It Up" and "Can't Nobody Love You" for the Top Gear radio show (tracks 11 and 12 on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven).  It was broadcast on 6 March (incidentally, Hugh Grundy's 20th birthday).

Reblogging because this radio appearance was broadcast fifty years ago to-day.  Also, to-day's Hugh Grundy’s birthday!

"Soulville"

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After noticing a similarity between "Just out of Reach" and "Soulville," I learned the chords to "Soulville" (there are only three) and the piano part at the beginning, which is not exactly in tempo but close enough.  I feel it worth mentioning that there are two sequential half-steps (A, A#, B) in the guitar part at the end of the bridges (interspersing "He'll make you nimble / He'll make you quick").

I think this is only the second of the BBC tracks I've learned, and it's a new one in the catalogue.

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.

"Just out of Reach"

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After listening to it yester-day, I learned the bass part for "Just out of Reach."  I hadn't done any work on it since September 2013, so it was past due.  I also figured out one phrase in the organ solo (pretty much just an arpeggio of A minor), but I didn't include it here.

I think there might be some connection between this and "Soulville," which the Zombies performed on the BBC.  In both bridges, one phrase of the melody is almost entirely one note.  In "Just out of Reach," it's "Time will show that I mean what I say, you'll see," and in "Soulville," it's "I'm gonna see all the folks and know all the tricks, oh yeah."  (Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" is an-other song with a mostly one-note phrase: "Gonna tell Aunt Mary about Uncle John / He claims he has the misery, but he has a lot of fun, oh, baby," and - as I've mentioned before - I think the Beatles' "I'm Down" and Argent's "He's a Dynamo" have this feature too.)

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the Zombies performed "Soulville" on 26 January 1965 (for eventual broadcast on 6 February), and I'm assuming that it was in their repertoire for awhile before that.  There's at least a full month between that BBC performance of "Soulville" and recording "Just out of Reach" (2 March 1965), so it's possible that Colin Blunstone took some inspiration from that, but - again - it's just a conjectured influence.

Recording Session

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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."