"Dance with Life"

The other thing I noticed when I listened to Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me recently is that in the line "I will make ev'ry day count" in "Dance with Life," "day" is sung with a melisma (D A), musically giving a sense of number for that "ev'ry."

"The Ghost of You and Me"

A few days ago, the Zombies posted the track listing of the new album.  The title "The Sun Will Rise Again" seemed familiar to me, and I suspect that this is a re-recording of a song from Colin Blunstone's solo album The Ghost of You and Me (the Zombies also re-did "Any Other Way" from the same album for Breathe Out, Breathe In).  It had been years since I last listened to the album, and when I listened to it a couple days ago, I found some small features to note.

In the lines "What am I supposed to do with all these blues / Haunting me ev'rywhere no matter what I do" in "The Ghost of You and Me," "ev'rywhere" is sung with a melisma (F# B B C B A G), musically giving a sense of that breadth.

"How Could We Dare to Be Wrong" b/w "Time's Running Out"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (19 January 1973), Colin Blunstone's "How Could We Dare to Be Wrong" b/w "Time's Running Out" (Epic S EPC 1197) was released in the U.K.

"Andorra" b/w "How Could We Dare to Be Wrong"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (12 January 1973), Colin Blunstone's "Andorra" b/w "How Could We Dare to Be Wrong" (Dut. Epic EPC 1183) was released in the U.K.

"Walking in the Sun" and "I Don't Want to Know"

Before I wrote a post about "Walking in the Sun" a couple days ago, I read the older posts I'd written about the song, in order to make sure that I hadn't already written about the significance of that conjunct phrase.

In this post from December 2018, I wrote out the guitar part and noted that a short phrase in between a C major and an A minor (first at ~0:50) is the same (albeit an octave lower) as a short phrase in between a C major and an A major (at ~1:43) in "I Don't Want to Know" (I wrote out that guitar part in September 2016).  The two phrases have the same rhythm and fall in the same place in the measure:

Yester-day, I was thinking about this similarity again, and I realized that these two songs were recorded at the same session, on 25 November 1964.  This similarity is still a rather trivial point, but now I know that the songs are closely connected chronologically.

"Walking in the Sun"

Last night, I figured out the violin in the choruses of the orchestral version of "Walking in the Sun" (although, provided I've figured out the parts correctly, the violin arpeggiates different chords compared to what the guitar plays).

In any case, while figuring out the part, I realized something about the melody to which the title phrase ("We'll be walking in the sun") is sung.  Here's the notation from an old post (it's actually the French horn part from the orchestral version, but that just doubles the vocal part):

This is a conjunct phrase (it moves step-wise through the scale), so musically, there's a sense of that "walking."

Argent Live at the Paris Theatre

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (14 December 1972), Argent performed at the Paris Theatre.  Earlier this year, I found a complete recording of the concert.  The date given at the link is 6 January 1973, but the set list matches what Russo details.  Maybe 6 January 1973 was the date the recording was broadcast.

Here's the set list:

• "Be My Lover, Be My Friend"
• "Sweet Mary"
• "Tragedy"
• "I Am the Dance of Ages"
• "The Fakir"
• "Hold Your Head Up"
• "He's a Dynamo"

"It's Magical"

Part of a line in "It's Magical" is "I bless the day you came along."  I think this may be inspired by the Everly Brothers and their song "Let It Be Me," which starts with a similar line:  "I bless the day I found you."  It's worth noting that "It's Magical" was written by Russ Ballard.

For what it's worth:  in Claes Johansen's The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream, Chris White calls the Everly Brothers "the most underrated influence on modern music" (page 58).

"Setting Yourself Up"

In the lines "No one's going to laugh / If you walk out on her" in "Setting Yourself Up," "walk" is sung with a melisma (I think it's B C B A G), musically giving a sense of movement.

"Keep the Curtains Closed Today"

I listened to Colin Blunstone's Journey yester-day and noticed a couple small features.

In "Keep the Curtains Closed Today," "while" in the line "This is our first day for quite a while" is sung with a melisma (D C# A), musically giving a sense either of duration or of degree (for "quite").

"Away" in the line "The future always seems so far away" is sung with the same melisma.  Here, it provides a sense of distance.

I also referenced the version on The Ghost of You and Me (slightly retitled to "Let's Keep the Curtains Closed Today") and discovered that it's a whole tone lower (G major rather than A major).  These words are sung with melismas there too, but they're slightly different, notwithstanding the lower key.  "While" is sung to the notes A G, and "away" is sung to the notes B A G.

"Together"

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about the bridge in "Together":

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

I'd noticed that in contrast to the quick note values of most of the section, each word in the phrase "change in time" is held for a full measure and that this prolonging of note values mirrors the "change" there.

Yester-day, I realized that the words themselves illustrate this change too.  In both rhyme and syllable count, the line "Need you like flowers need the rain" complements the line "As much as seasons have to change in time" up until the first half of "change."  The second half of "change" and the phrase "in time" create structural differences between these two lines.  Instead of a pure rhyme, there's merely assonance between "rain" and "change," and the lines have unequal numbers of syllables.  These structural differences illustrate that "change" in a poetic manner.

"Woman"

I recently re-learned the bass part for "Woman" (I'm in the midst of notating it) and found an old post on this blog where I'd written down the guitar and organ phrases (albeit just with note letters and I misidentified the organ as electric piano).  A couple days ago, I realized that since the guitar and organ play the same two-bar phrase, just starting at different points, they form a very simple canon:

My notation shows just four measures, but obviously, these phrases continue.