Colin Blunstone's "Say You Don't Mind"

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.

Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent's Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London

To-day I listened to Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent's Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, and I noticed a couple things.

"In My Mind a Miracle"

This is the first track on As Far As I Can See (which was the first album for which Blunstone and Argent used the Zombies moniker again).  I'd previously noticed the importance of sight in the lyrics, with lines like "No longer blind, I see because of you" and the hint at the classical blind seer, like Tiresias, (and the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle) with "In you I found my Odyssey and Oracle" (in the liner notes, they've finally fixed the spelling).  I'd noticed all of those visual things, but I'd neglected to notice the Latin root of "retrospect" in the line "The things that I've done in / Retrospect have caused me pain."  In Latin, spectare is the verb to look at.

"Hold Your Head Up"

This is something that should have been obvious, but in the "Hold your head up" chant after the organ solo, "Hold your head" is all sung to one note (a D), but the "up" is sung to a higher note (an F), so there's an ascent in the music and the lyrics.  This feature is also in Argent's original (from All Together Now).

Colin Blunstone's "Beginning"

Last night I listened to Colin Blunstone's Journey and noticed a small thing about "Beginning."  The choral background doubles the "surrounds you in the night" in the line "Oh, self-doubt surrounds you in the night."  The choral background surrounds Blunstone's lead vocal just like the self-doubt in the lyric.

Colin Blunstone's Ennismore

This morning I listened to Colin Blunstone's Ennismore.  I noticed a couple things about two songs, but since they're not major points, I'm putting them in the same post.

The first thing I noticed is in "I Don't Believe in Miracles."  After the line "I believe I was your game, your ball" in the lead vocals, the backing vocals echo, "Your ball."  There's something of a glissando on that "ball" though, so the pitch is raised as the word is sung, which anticipates the next line in the lead vocals: "If you threw me up, then I would fall."

The other thing I noticed is that in "Andorra" after "rain" in the line "But down the mountains came the rain to soak our head," there's a guitar part that seems to represent raindrops.

Colin Blunstone's "A Sign from Me to You"

When I listened to the second disc of the 30th anniversary of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass this afternoon, the first vocal phrase in "The Art of Dying" sounded vaguely familiar to me.  In my head, I could hear an-other part that wasn't in Harrison's song, so I figured that I was remembering an-other song that it sounded like.  I eventually placed it as Colin Blunstone's "A Sign from Me to You," and I just lookt into the similarities.

The similarity is between only the first vocal phrase of each verse.  I didn't figure out the exact melody for either, but they're both (roughly) a rising and falling phrase (something like A, B, C, D, C, B, A).  They both have eleven syllables too.  The first line of "The Art of Dying" is "There'll come a time when all of us must leave here"  (in the liner notes, the lyrics are rendered with a line break ["There'll come a time / When all of us must leave here"], but there isn't really a break there as they're sung.  The first line of "A Sign from Me to You" is "You say all you wanted was a sign, my love."  The first lines of all the other verses in both songs also have eleven syllables.

In some interviews and things I've read, Blunstone has mentioned that he's a fan of the Beatles, but I don't know if that extends to their solo material.  This similarity with Harrison's "The Art of Dying" would seem to suggest so.

The Zombies' "I Love You"

I'm listening to a compilation album of the Drifters.  I figured I'd better transcribe their "Some Kind of Wonderful" because I noticed something about it last time I did this Collection Audit project, and in doing so, I noticed something else.

In the bridge, there are the lines "There's so much I wanna say / But the right words don't come my way."  It reminded me of "I love you / Yes I do, but the words won't come" and "My words should explain / But my words won't come" in the Zombies' "I Love You" (written by Chris White, their bass player).  I'll cite the same source I cited two years ago:  in the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Paul Atkinson (their guitarist) says, "We hung out in Ben E King and the Drifters' dressing room, and we'd play poker and sing and play guitar."  "Some Kind of Wonderful" is from 1961; that Atkinson quote refers to 1964; and "I Love You" is from 1965, so the chronology would allow for that influence.

This also calls into question something I noticed a few years ago.  There's a similar line in "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" from Colin Blunstone's The Ghost of You and Me album.  It's "It's alright if the words won't come."  Since Blunstone is the leader singer for the Zombies and wrote "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You," I thought that it was likely that he took that line from "I Love You," even if just subconsciously.  But now that I found a similar line in a Drifters' song, I'm not so sure.  Two years ago, I postulated that this same Drifters' song influenced Blunstone's "Wonderful" from his Journey album.

I feel it worth noting that the Zombies recorded a version of Blunstone's "Now I Know I'll Never Get over You" (titled just "Never Get over You") on their new album Still Got That Hunger, so that Drifters' influence - if it's viable - has caught up with them again.

The Drifters' "Some Kind of Wonderful"

I listened to a compilation album of the Drifters this morning, including King and Goffin’s “Some Kind of Wonderful.”  As soon as the introduction started, it reminded me of Colin Blunstone’s “Wonderful” from his Journey album.  The beginning of “Some Kind of Wonderful” is almost an a capella singing of wonderful, which is the same as the very end of Colin Blunstone’s “Wonderful.”

Wonderful is a fairly common word, especially considering that most pop songs are love songs, and a capella singing isn’t too uncommon, but I do think there’s some connection between these two songs.  Blunstone’s “Wonderful” was written by Rod Argent and Chris White, and all three were in the Zombies to-gether.  In 1964, the Zombies played a Murray the K show where the Drifters were also billed.  In the liner notes to Zombie Heaven, Paul Atkinson (the Zombies’ guitarist) recalls, “We hung out in Ben E King and the Drifters’ dressing room, and we’d play poker and sing and play guitar.”

I wouldn’t say that that’s absolute proof of direct influence, but I do think it’s more than just a coincidence.