"A Girl Like That"

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A couple days ago, I listened to Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent's Out of the Shadows for my Collection Audit project.  The guitar part near the beginning of "A Girl Like That" sounded easy, so I figured that out.  All I know so far though is just arpeggiated chords, which wouldn't be very interesting to listen to, so I wrote out the notation (I guessed on the key):

For the first twenty seconds of the song, the guitar part just alternates between these two measures (I have them twice in my notation).

"Say You Don't Mind"

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After I figured out the specific notes in some of the melismas in "Say You Don't Mind," I also figured out the bass part for the first verse.  I had to record this using the fake upright bass setting on my keyboard though because I don't have (and don't really know how to play) an upright bass.  Because of that and because it's mostly fourths and fifths, it has a resemblance to donkey braying.

I might also try notating as much as I recorded (which is all I know) because I think it's entirely quarter notes and eighth notes.

"Say You Don't Mind"

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Collection Audit:

A couple days ago I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year (on vinyl, even), and I noticed some things about "Say You Don't Mind."  I knew there are melismas during certain parts of the verses, but I found connections with the lyrics that I hadn't noticed before.  The two melismas in question are for "growin'" (E D# C# C#) and "goin'" (E D# C# C# B A, I think) in the lines "I've been doing some growin' / But I'm scared of you goin'."  The melisma for "growin'" sort of indicates the breadth of experience or knowledge that the singer/speaker claims he now has, and the melisma for "goin'" portrays the leaving of the titular "you."  Both encompass a distance in pitch rather than a single note, which would imply staying the same or staying of a stationary sort, respectively.

Here's a thing about "Say You Don't Mind" I noticed while doing my Collection Audit project.  An-other thing I noticed (which I think is just coincidental) is that "dying" and "whining" are in the lyrics of the first and last songs on the album.  They're both in the line "Crying, dying, sighing, whining, shining in the microphone" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her," and they're in the lines "I've been doing some whinin'" and "I've been doing some dyin'" in "Say You Don't Mind."

There doesn't seem to be a connection between them, but there is an interesting sort of book-ending going on there.

"Smokey Day"

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I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year a couple days ago (there's a post about it from my Collection Audit project in the queue), and I noticed that the (upright) bass part in "Smokey Day" is pretty simple (it's mostly just three notes: A, G, and F).  That got me thinking about the other version of "Smokey Day" - the one recorded in December 1968 in the nebulous post-Zombies/pre-Argent period.  I was figuring out a lot of parts last night, so I thought I'd give that a go too (I'm not sure if I ever tried figuring it out before), and I got the opening eight measures of the guitar part.

Once the vocals start, the guitar part changes, but since it's obscured by the vocals, I haven't figured out anymore yet.  This itself was hard enough to record; it took me seventeen takes, and I have a blister on my finger.

"Friends of Mine"

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Yester-day I figured out Rod Argent's (I think it's Argent, at least) counterpoint part during the second half of the second verse of "Friends of Mine."  It's the "ba ba ba..." part.  It's simple enough that I could notate it, and I noticed a couple of interesting things.  First of which is that it's in-between the beats:

Second, I noticed that it has some similarity with the mellotron part during the second verse of "Changes":

Those four bars repeat, so I didn't feel it was necessary to notate the whole thing.  Leaving it at four measures makes it a bit easier to compare with the four-measure phrase in "Friends of Mine" too.

Like I've mentioned before, I'm not quite sure what key "Changes" is in, but I've been assuming that it's A minor.  "Friends of Mine" is in C major.  Already, there's a possibility of some tonal similarities because A minor and C major are relative keys.

The note values are different, but there are some similarities between the phrases.  They each start with E and F notes, although in different orders.  Then there's a matching descent of a second (A to G) and then an-other descent starting from a higher note in which the first two notes are the same (C, B, A, G, in "Changes;" C, B, G# in "Friends of Mine").

Mostly what I noticed about the two phrases is that the intervals are very small.  They're mostly seconds or thirds.  There are two fourths in the "Friends of Mine" phrase (ascending G to C and descending A to E).  "Changes" has only one fourth interval, although it's the same ascending G to C that's in "Friends of Mine."

Because of the small intervals and the up-and-down nature of the melody, once I isolated this part from the rest of "Friends of Mine," it kept reminding me of "St. Anne," the tune to which "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" is sung.  It also has small intervals (the largest of which is a fourth) and - like the phrase in "Friends of Mine" - has only one accidental.  I'm assuming that Argent would be familiar with this because of his chorister days.  I was also thinking he might have known it through Bach's use of the tune in his Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552.  But then I did some research, and it turns out that BWV 552 is referred to as "St. Anne" only because of its similarity to the "St. Anne" tune, which Bach wouldn't have known.

However!  I was also going to note the similarity between "St. Anne" and the hymn tune "Was mein Gott will."  Like the "Friends of Mine" phrase and "St. Anne," it's largest interval is a fourth.  It has two accidentals though.

Back in April, I found "Was mein Gott will" in Bach's Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn, BWV 92, and I actually thought it was "St. Anne" at first.  So maybe that's the tune Bach used for BWV 552?  He also uses it in BWV 103, BWV 111, and BWV 144.  In any case, I think there might be something to the similarity between the "Friends of Mine" phrase and these hymn tunes.  It seems that choral singing is frequently touted as a feature on Odessey and Oracle, although usually that's in reference to things like "Maybe after He's Gone" and "Changes."  But now that I know the notes of this "Friends of Mine" phrase, I think it's an indication of Argent's chorister background too.

"Hung up on a Dream"

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Collection Audit:

This afternoon I listened to the 30th anniversary edition of the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, and I noticed something about "Hung up on a Dream."  There's an interval of a fourth between "sights" and "above" in the line "And showed me strangest clouded sights above."  "Sights" is sung to an A, and the two syllables of "above" are sung to D notes.  The distance between the pitches of those notes helps to give a sense of the spatial distance mentioned in the lyric.

Odessey and Oracle {Revisited}

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Collection Audit:

Over the last two days, I listened to the two discs of the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited}: The 40th Anniversary Concert.  I noticed some things (with melismas, naturally) on two songs on the first disc. 

"Maybe after He's Gone"

The "breathe" in the line "I feel I'll never breathe again" is sung to two syllables instead of just one.  There's a deliberateness in how it's sung, almost as if the speaker/singer wants to draw out the breaths he has now because he feels there will soon be a time he can't breathe at all (the next line is "I feel life's gone from me"). 

"Tell Her No"

The "charms" in the line "And if she tempts you with her charms" has a melisma.  Instead of the one syllable it's spoken with, there are multiple syllables, as if to make the "charms" musically alluring. 

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Both of these features are on the original recordings that the Zombies did in the '60s.  However, on this live album, the melisma'd "breathe" in "Maybe after He's Gone" is more prominent, and the melisma to which the "charms" in "Tell Her No" is sung actually has more notes than the original recording.  (It's G# E F# in the original; G# F# E F# in this live version.)

I found some more things about Zombies songs while doing my Collection Audit project.  I didn'’t feel it important enough to include in that post, but I also noticed some consonance in "“Hung up on a Dream."  "I stood astounded staring hard."

I was (and I guess still am) very excited about that melisma in "Tell Her No" partially because it's an example of how songs can develop through playing them live so often (it's like the guitar part that precedes the second verse of "She's Not There;" it's not in the original, but it's been in every live version for about the last eight years, so it's become a part of the song).  I referenced every live version of "Tell Her No" I have, and the period live recordings (on the fourth disc of Zombie Heaven) have the three-note melisma, but the more recent live versions (on Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London; Live at Metropolis Studios; and Extended Versions) all have the four-note melisma.

New World

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Collection Audit:

A couple days ago I listened to the Zombies' New World album, and I noticed two things. 

"Nights on Fire"

I'm not fully convinced of this myself, but I think the line "Only believe and the door will open wide" might be a reference to the Bible, specifically "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).  A couple of the other songs mention Heaven (although perhaps not in a religious sense), which seems to strengthen the possibility of this being an intentional Biblical reference. 

"Knowing You"

In the line "Facing up to every day now, I will never be alone" there's a harmony part for "be alone," so the musical arrangement mirrors the lyric.  The speaker/singer says that he won't be alone, and there's an-other voice there to demonstrate that.

 Some more things I noticed about Zombies songs while doing Collection Audit.

"Love"

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I've been procrastinating on recording this (because it's just a tiny bit), but on Thursday I learned the guitar solo in Argent's "Love."  I listened to Nexus for my Collection Audit project, although I actually learned this part before I listened to the album.

I'm not sure if I have the stops right, by which I mean I might be playing one note where there should be two or two where there should be one.

"She Loves the Way They Love Her"

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August 5 was apparently the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Revolver album, so I skipped ahead in my Collection Audit project (I'm currently in the Ns) to listen to it.  I wrote a rather lengthy post about some things I noticed, but rather than reblog the whole thing (this is a Zombies blog after all, although I am doing this same sort of thing with the Beatles), here's a thing I noticed about "Here, There, and Everywhere" that's relevant to this project:

The line "Running my hands through her hair" sounded familiar to me, and it wasn't too long before I placed it.  There's an identical line near the end of Colin Blunstone's "She Loves the Way They Love Her" (on One Year).  Both Blunstone and his former Zombies band mate Rod Argent (who wrote "She Loves the Way They Love Her") have listed the Beatles as an influence, and between that and both songs' rhyming "hair" with "there" ("There / Running my hands through her hair" in "Here, There, and Everywhere" and "Running my hands through her hair / And knowing she'll always be there" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her"), I think this is more than just a coincidence.  At best, it might be an instance of subconscious influence.

"Exclusively for Me"

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I'd intended to post the notation for the cello part in Colin Blunstone's "Exclusively for Me" to-day, and I even notated what I knew, but when I reviewed the record, I discovered that 1) I'd either forgotten or not realized that I don't know the whole cello part (and I've been trying to post only complete parts here) and 2) I'd been missing a note.

So I don't have notation this week.  I've been running out anyway; next week is the last notation/chords/etc. I have planned.

"Ma non è giusto"

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I sort of forgot about this (I've been busy lately), but a couple weeks ago (3 July), I searched for "Ma non è giusto," and I found this site, which has the Italian lyrics.  Apparently, an Italian group called the Kings did an Italian version of "She's Not There" long before the Neil MacArthur version.

I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I fully intend to translate this into English, just to see how different it is from the original Zombies lyrics.