The Zombies' "Soulville"

This morning I listened to the last disc of the Zombies' Zombie Heaven, subtitled "Live on the BBC," and I noticed a small thing about their version of "Soulville."  During a section about halfway through the song, the backing vocals consist of the phrase "Come on down to Soulville."  The "down" there is sung with two syllables; it's a G down to an E.  That descent sort of represents the whole "Come on down to Soulville" phrase itself.

The Zombies' "Smokey Day"

This morning I listened to the second disc of the Zombies' Zombie Heaven (which is the last album I have to listen to before completing Collection Audit this year).  I'm pretty sure I'd noticed before that the harpsichord in "Smokey Day" is panned through different channels about halfway through the song (starting at about 1:00), but this morning I realized that that effect is connected to the lyrics.  The harpsichord moves from the left channel to the right channel after the line "Soft, serene, she dances," and during the next line "Moving sweetly through my life," it moves back to the left channel.  Both of those lines deal with movement, and the harpsichord somewhat literally underscores that movement through that panning.

The Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream"

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.

The Zombies' Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} The 40th Anniversary Concert

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.)

The Zombies' New World

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.

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).

The Zombies' "Indication"

The third (and final) thing I noticed while listening to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology is in the backing vocals in "Indication."  For the last line of the verses, the backing vocals have a consist descent.  For the first two verses, that melodic arc emphasizes the lyrics:  "Tied down every day and every night" and "I won't be the one to settle down."  Both have "down" in the line, and the melody descends.

The Zombies' "Don't Cry for Me"

The second thing I noticed when I listened to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology yester-day was some melismas in "Don't Cry for Me."  I'd noticed the descending melisma on "down" before, but apparently I'd neglected to recognize the melisma'd "heart" in the line before it:  "Don't break your heart / Thinking you have let me down."

The descending melisma for "down" is easily explained as a musical representation of the "down," but I was initially confounded by the melisma'd "heart."  The full line is "Don't break your heart," but that melisma does break the heart (into notes of different pitches).

After thinking about it for a while, the only explanation I can come up with (aside from just a simple vocal embellishment) is that the sentiment there is disingenuous.  The singer/speaker says, "Don't break your heart," but he doesn't really mean it.

The Zombies' "I Don't Want to Know"

Yester-day I listened to the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology and noticed a few things.  The first was in "I Don't Want to Know."  There are the lines "I believe what I want / No matter what you do," and I'd always understood the "do" there as representing an action.  "I believe what I want / No matter what action you perform."  But listening to it yester-day, I realized that it could be a sort of abbreviation standing in for the same verb, so "I believe what I want / No matter what you believe."

The singer/speaker's steadfastness in his belief remains the same, but - depending on how that second line is parsed - he's resisting different things.

The Zombies' "Play It for Real"

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.

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 Zombies' "Time of the Season"

Yester-day I listened to Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" on a compilation album.  The bass part sounded suspiciously familiar to me, but because the version on that compilation was a re-recording instead of the original, I had to go and listen to the thirty-second sample on Amazon to make sure what I heard was in the original recording too.  And it was!

My favorite band is the Zombies, and over the past four years or so, I've been trying to learn every part to every song they recorded.  Over the last few months, I noticed the same recurring phrase in the bass parts in three of Rod Argent's songs.  It's the 5th, 7th, and octave notes of the scale of whatever key the song is in, and it's in a rhythm of two eighth notes (the 5th and 7th) then two dotted quarter notes (the octave, twice).

I had to learn the bass part to King's "Stand by Me" to be sure, but it follows this same pattern (or, rather, since "Stand by Me" is older, those Rod Argent songs follow the same pattern).  In interviews, Argent frequently mentions the Zombies' Christmas show at the Brooklyn Fox in 1964 and how Ben E. King and the Drifters were an-other act on the same bill, so I'm assuming he was familiar with "Stand by Me."

In King's "Stand by Me," that 5th, 7th, octave phrase is in A major (so, E, G#, A, A).  In the Zombies' songs, it's in E major in "Tell Her No" (B, D#, E, E), in C major in "Whenever You're Ready" (G, B, C, C), and in E minor in "Time of the Season" (B, D, E, E).  After I realized that connection, I kept playing that part, just because I was so excited I found a precedent for this motif I'd found in these Zombies' songs, and I discovered that there's a further similarity between the bass parts of "Stand by Me" and "Time of the Season."  After that 5th, 7th, octave phrase, there's a diatonic descent in the same two-eighth-notes-then-two-dotted-quarter-notes rhythm (A, G#, F#, F# in "Stand by Me" and E, D, C, C in "Time of the Season"):

(click the image to enlarge it)

So for the first four bars of the verses, the bass part in "Time of the Season" is the same as the bass part in "Stand by Me," just in E minor rather than A major.

The Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers

I just listened to the Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers.  I feel kind of dumb for not noticing this before (or at least I don't remember noticing it before), but they sneak "Taps" in at the very end of "Draft Morning."  It makes sense, as the whole song is about the draft (the song is in opposition to it) and "Taps" is what's played at military funerals.

There's some interesting vocal effects on "Get to You."  Near the end there's a repeated phrase consisting of a sharp intake of air followed by two exhalations.  The intake is like that on the Beatles' "Girl" from Rubber Soul, and the exhalation isn't too dissimilar from that on the Zombies' "Time of the Season."  I don't know if it's the case here, but the Beatles certainly influenced the Byrds in other areas, so it's possible that they got that effect from "Girl."  I'm not so sure that there's any connection with "Time of the Season" though, as The Notorious Byrd Brothers came out on 3 January 1968, and "Time of the Season" wasn't released until April 1968.  So the use of that effect around the same time is probably just coincidental.

An-other interesting similarity that's probably just coincidental is that they used the Moog (or at least I think it's the Moog) for nautical effects on "Dolphin's Smile," and almost a decade later (in 1977), Electric Light Orchestra did the same thing for "The Whale" on Out of the Blue.

The Zombies' "Heaven's Gate"

I'm listening to the Zombies' album New World, and for the first time, I noticed the expansion in the a cappella part at the beginning of "Heaven's Gate."  The first few lines ("And now Heaven's gate is open wide / For you have put a light inside me / I can see that Heaven is near") are mostly centered, but the next line ("Heaven is here") is spread throughout the stereo channels.

That stereo expansion and the instrumentation's coming in only after that a cappella introduction both serve to further what's in the lyrics - the feeling of arrival at the titular Heaven's gate.

Furthermore, the drumming pattern is similar to that on "She's Not There."  Like I've said before, I'm not a drummer, and I don't know the terminology, but both songs have two drum hits followed by a cymbal crash (although I think "She's Not There" uses a snare and "Heaven's Gate" doesn't).  It's important to note that I'm referencing the stereo version of "She's Not There."  The mono version has an overdubbed drum part.  However, the drum part during the choruses of "Heaven's Gate" (and at the very end) sounds a bit like the overdubbed version of "She's Not There," with the extra drum beat.  In any case, it's interesting that Hugh Grundy's drumming retained that characteristic element.

The Zombies' "It Never Fails to Please Me"

I'm listening to the Zombies' Into the Afterlife, and it's occurred to me that "It Never Fails to Please Me" is very much in the same vein as their earlier song "Care of Cell 44."  They both have a piano-driven beat (which, granted, isn't too unusual for some of the Zombies' songs) and "bum bum bum" vocals (although they're more "baum, baum, baum" in "It Never Fails to Please Me").  Furthermore, the diatonicism in the guitar part isn't too dissimilar from the diatonic bass part in "Care of Cell 44."

The Zombies' I Love You

I went a bit out-of-order this morning and listened to the Zombies compilation album I Love You.  The Zombies have been my favorite band for the past five or six years, yet I'm still finding new things about their music (although I don't know whether that means they're a incredibly nuanced band or whether I'm not very good at listening).

I finally determined that "How We Were Before" features twelve-string guitar.  I'd been suspicious of this (I'd played parts of it on my own twelve-string and thought it sounded pretty good), but now I'm fairly certain of it.

I discovered that Rod Argent uses organ on "Woman."  This realization came after noticing the really long sustain on the G major chord during the guitar solo.  It just keeps going, which means it has to be organ rather than electric piano.

For the first time, I noticed the three distinct vocals parts at the end of "Don't Go Away."  Two parts are alternating with "don't go away," but the third is just an "ooh."

This album includes some stereo mixes of songs (which in some cases are different stereo mixes than those that appear on The Decca Stereo Anthology), so on some songs, things were placed in sonically different places, which made it easier to distinguish some parts.  This is the case on "I Love You," and because of that I heard some interesting rhythmical interplay between the guitar and the bass during the "if I can find / the words in my mind" part.

Another suspicion that was confirmed is the guitar glissandoes at the beginning of "Remember You."  I'd been suspicious of these since I listened to The Decca Stereo Anthology about a month ago.  The guitar part at the beginning alternates between two D's an octave apart and a D and some-other-note-that-I-still-have-to-determine that then slides up to a D.

Also, I may have found a reference to "She's Not There" in "She Does Everything for Me."  "She's a girl who makes me feel / That you're not there, you weren't real" recalls the "she's not there" from "She's Not There."  The "she" in "She Does Everything for Me" seems to have replaced the "she" in "She's Not There."  In any case, it's an interesting parallel, as "She's Not There" was the Zombies' first single for Decca, and "She Does Everything for Me" was the B-side of their last single for Decca.  Also, kudos to Rod Argent for getting the relative pronoun correct.

The Zombies' "Woman"

I listened to part of the Zombies' The Decca Stereo Anthology this morning.  (It's pretty long - which is awesome, but which also means it takes awhile to listen to.)

This is only the third time I've listened to this album, and I think I've noticed something new every time I've listened to it.  This time, it was in the backing vocals/harmonies on "Woman."  While Colin Blunstone sings, "I can't conceive, no, I can't believe you love me too," Rod Argent and Chris White's harmonies are just "e."  It works well because the same sound is in both "conceive" and "believe," but it's still sort of a weird choice of a vowel as far as backing vocals go.  Usually, it's "ah" or "ooh."  Maybe even "oh."  And here it's "e."  But it still works.

The Zombies' "Summertime"

I’m currently listening to the Zombies’ Begin Here.  I’m a big Zombies fan, so I’ve probably heard their stuff a lot, but it feels like I’m always finding new things.

Just now, I discovered that Hugh Grundy uses a lot of rim knocks in the Zombies’ version of Gershwin’s “Summertime.”  I think that, combined with Paul Atkinson’s esoteric-sounding guitar work is what really makes the song unique.  Rod Argent’s introductory keyboard part certainly sets that up, but I think the drumming really sustains it.