I'm listening to the Zombies' Breathe Out, Breathe In. I remember reading something (I think it was around the time the album came out) that compared the piano riff in "Play It for Real" to that in the Beatles' "Hey Bulldog." I'd sort of dismissed this as, "Yeah, they sort of sound alike," thinking that the big similarity was just that they were both piano riffs. Listening to it this time, that similarity was very obvious tonally (probably because I learnt how to play the riff from "Hey Bulldog" back in November and haven't listened to Breathe Out, Breathe In since last May).
Because I already knew the riff from "Hey Bulldog," I learnt the riff from "Play It for Real" in order to compare them, and I was surprised by how similar they are musically. The riff in "Hey Bulldog" is in B minor where the riff in "Play It for Real" is in A major, but - as far as scale degrees - the riffs are exactly the same (up to a point at least; the riff in "Play It for Real" is longer and more developed than that in "Hey Bulldog"). I tried notating them, but they're beyond my notational skills, so I'll just have to describe them.
Both riffs start with two tonic notes (B B in "Hey Bulldog;" A A in "Play It for Real"). Then there's the third note of the scale (a D in B minor [a minor third] for "Hey Bulldog;" a C# in A major [a major third] for "Play It for Real") before going back to the tonic. That third starts a skipping between sequentially higher notes and the tonic, and that skipping figure is capped with an ascending half-step from augmented fourth to a perfect fifth. So - in full - it's B B D B E B E# F# in "Hey Bulldog," and - as far as it matches "Hey Bulldog" - A A C# A D D# E in "Play It for Real."
The rhythms start to differ near the end of that first phrase, but tonally, they're very similar. The only differences are the key each is in and that one has a minor third where the other has a major third.
Rod Argent (the Zombies' keyboard player) has talked about the Beatles' influence in some interviews, so I think this is a likely instance of influence even if it was a conscious influence.I'm queuing this, so it won't show up until 2 March, and by then I'll be busy recording some songs for the historical anniversaries, but after that I'll get around to recording and posting the riff from "Play It for Real."
This morning I listened to the first disc of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (and I'm listening to the second disc now). I found something in "Visions of Johanna" that both excited and confused me.
At about 3:49, there's a short guitar riff:
This is the fifth song I've found that riff in (which is the exciting part), but now I have even less of an answer to questions of influence (which is the confusing part).
I first found that riff in the Zombies' "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" (there are two versions on Into the Afterlife, but that riff is only in the second version - the one with fuzz guitar). Then I found it in the Moody Blues' "So Deep within You" from On the Threshold of a Dream. A few months later, I stumbled across it in the Tremeloes' "Hello World." And then I also found it (albeit on piano) in Colin Blunstone's "Caroline Goodbye" from One Year.
"Visions of Johanna" predates all of those though. It's from 1966. "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" is from 1968 (but wasn't released until 2007). "So Deep within You" and "Hello World" are both from 1969, and "Caroline Goodbye" is from 1971.
I'd postulated that there was some influence between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "So Deep within You" because the Zombies and Moody Blues knew each other, and there's almost certainly some connection between "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "Caroline Goodbye" because Rod Argent was the leader of the Zombies and played piano for Blunstone (who was also in the Zombies). I'd had trouble fitting in the Tremeloes though.
Finding that same phrase in this Dylan song still doesn't clear up everything, but it does introduce a new line of influence. The Tremeloes covered Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" at the end of 1968, so they were familiar with him, possibly including that particular riff in "Visions of Johanna."
A strumming pattern in "Visions of Johanna" also stuck out to me. I'm not sure if I have the chord phrasing right, but it's something like:
There's an Asus4 that modulates to an A major. With a slight difference (modulating to A minor rather than A major) that same rhythm is in the Zombies' demo of "Call of the Night":
"Call of the Night" was later re-workt into (and put into a different key for) "Girl Help Me," but that feature is present there too.
I'm not sure if any of this really provides evidence that any of these musicians were influenced by an-other, but their songs at least share some similar features that I thought interesting.I found more stuff about that riff in "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" and "Caroline Goodbye," but it doesn't really clear anything up.
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