The A-Side
(First broadcast 11 December 2012)
[Clip of in-studio peformance of "Time of the Season"]
John Wilson: Hello, I'm John Wilson. Thanks for downloading Mastertapes from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to Mastertapes and to the Zombies, playing live for our audience here at the BBC Maida Vale studios. Rod Argent is on piano; with him are fellow original band members singer Colin Blunstone and bassist Chris White. They're here to discuss a classic British album released in 1968, but one that took time to become rightly regarded as a musical masterpiece: Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies.
[Clips of "Time of the Season," "Brief Candles," and "This Will Be Our Year"]
John: Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, Chris White, welcome to Mastertapes. Now in 1967, the three of you entered Abbey Road Studios to make the second album by the Zombies, and the band was best known for the singles "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No," and you'd ridden that wave of British beat groups along with the Beatles and the Who. These days, Odessey and Oracle is often cited alongside the likes of Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's [Lonely Hearts Club Band] as one of the most innovative records of the 1960s and regularly appears on the lists of all-time great albums, but when you went into that studio, Rod, first of all, what was the ambition?
Rod: Well, the ambition really was to make an album that we were pleased with because we'd had quite a few singles leading up to that point that we were really very unhappy with because we felt that the guy that was producing us, a very talented guy, old school producer, did a fantastic job with "She's Not There," but after "She's Not There," we felt that rather than try and just get the best out of the performances that were going on in the studio, he was trying to re-create the first single, and he had it in his head that the breathiness of Colin's voice was what made it a hit
John: Right.
Rod: so he was constantly trying to exaggerate that rather than just take what the musical ideas were and just get the best out of the actual record, so this was driving us mad a bit
John: Yeah.
Rod: and my memory is that it was sort of in the air that we might be splitting up at some time in the not-too-distant future, so Chris and I particularly-
John: Had you talked about it, then?
Rod: No, we hadn't really.
Chris: No.
Rod: It was just a sort of feeling.
John: Colin, what's your memory?
Colin: Well, it really intrigues me because, uh, this comes up in conversation quite a lot. Rod and Chris, I think, both felt that this was gonna be the last album, but I didn't know.
John: They hadn't told you?
Colin: No.
Chris: No, I didn't think that.
Colin: What, you didn't think that either?
John: Chris, you didn't, you didn't think that either?
Chris: No, I didn't think it was.
John: Alright.
Colin: I think it's very hard-
John: So, Rod, was this just, this was your plan, was it?
Rod: Well, I... obviously, it was, yeah. But whatever. We desperately wanted to get our own ideas on record, so we went to a different record company, and we said, "Would you finance us for an album?" Now...
John: This was CBS records-
Rod: This was CBS.
John: You'd been on Decca; you moved to CBS.
Rod: We'd been on Decca. And CBS said, "Well, we'll give you a thousand pounds," which even at the time wasn't a lot of money to make an album, and to give him his credit, the old producer, Ken Jones, was really helpful. He was a really autocratic producer, but he said, "If you wanna do it yourself, I'll help you do it," so he helped us get Abbey Road, which was wonderful because we were one of the few artists at that time who were able to use Abbey Road that weren't signed to EMI Records.
John: Right.
Rod: And in fact, we walked in there as the Beatles virtually were walking out, having just recorded Sgt. Pepper, so it was a fantastic time for us.
John: You were the next booking, literally, in the studio?
Rod: We were, as I remember it.
Chris: Well, it was roughly the same time, yeah.
Colin: Well, it was close; it was very close.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
John: So-
Chris: And before that we weren't allowed to even be at the mixing of our studio stuff, so this was the first time we were allowed to listen to what we were recording.
John: And was that one of the conditions of the deal with CBS? Had you said to them, "We're taking control over this record?"
Chris: Yes.
Colin: Yes.
John: "This is gonna be ours."
Chris: Yeah.
Colin: There was no outside producer.
John: And you state that on the album sleeve. On the original vinyl sleeve, it states on the back of the record: "We went to CBS and with smarm and charm, we managed to get money," I think it says.
Colin: Whatever it takes.
John: I can't remember the exact wording. "Whatever it takes." But you said, "This is gonna be our record." So that was [the] determination to do it on your own terms then?
Chris: Yes, yeah.
Colin: Yes.
Chris: Absolutely.
Rod: We actually went in, and the guy said, "Oh, g--, we just finished the Beatles album"... because the Beach Boys had done Pet Sounds on eight-track, "Well, can we not have eight track?" and they said, "Well, we've got two four-tracks that we can sync together."
John: Right.
Rod: He said, "It was a nightmare," and we said, "Ah, we'll have some of that." You know, basically. And we had more tracks than we'd ever had before, and so what it meant was that we would go in there in a really prepared way, and we would put down what we'd rehearsed 'cause we didn't have much time, but there was still that freedom of extra tracks, so if I, for instance, heard an extra line on a song, like on "Changes," for instance.
John: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, show us. You're sitting at the piano here today, so....
Rod: On "Changes," the chorus was [plays piano]. But I, I sort of heard, I said, "Well, why don't we put this line on top?" [Play piano and sings top line] And so that
John: Yeah.
Rod: that other line was something which just happened.
John: But you were able to do that because the technology allowed it, that-
Rod: Yeah.
John: you hadn't run out of tracks.
Rod: Because we hadn't run out of tracks, yeah.
John: And are you writing specifically for Colin's voice? 'Cause, Colin Blunstone, you have one of the most distinctive and affecting voices in pop music. I mean, absolutely beautiful range that you have, but sadly, you're under doctor's orders, aren't you? You got laryngitis?
Colin: I know, yeah. I've been singing professionally for nearly fifty years. I've never had laryngitis or bronchitis. I was on tour in Holland, and I just got hit with both of them, and I lost my voice completely, but it's come back now.
Rod: D'ya wanna try it?
Colin: Yeah, I'll give it a go.
John: Your doctor's gonna be furious with Mastertapes, isn't he?
Chris: He is.
[Colin and Rod sing some of "A Rose for Emily"]
John: Sensational. Thank you so much, Colin. If that's you singing with laryngitis, then, you know, no hope for the rest of us.
Colin: I-
John: You got, first got together in 1961.
Rod: Yeah.
Colin: We did, yeah.
John: Rod and yourself, and famously, you met not in a pub but outside a pub.
Colin: We were too young to go in the pub.
John: You were too young? So what, you used to hang out?
Colin: We just [indistinct].
John: And this is in St. Albans in Hertfordshire?
Colin: That's right, yeah. We, we went to two different schools. Rod went to St. Alban's School; I went to St. Alban's Grammar School, so I didn't really know any of the other guys except there was one common denominator who was a neighbor of Rod's who sat in front of me in school. We had to sit in alphabetical order. So if we didn't sit in alphabetical order, I wouldn't have been in the Zombies. Because he was Arnold, and he knew Rod
John: Yeah.
Colin: and I was Blunstone, sitting behind him. And he said, "You got a guitar, haven't you?" He said, "D'ya wanna be in a band?" And I thought, "OK, I'll give it a go." And that was my introduction to the Zombies, but
John: As a guitarist, initially.
Colin: Rod was the singer. I was the guitarist.
John: And then you won a local competition, then got signed by Decca, and "She's Not There" was a debut single but went to number two in the charts in America.
Rod: Number one in Cashbox, which - at the time - was equivalent with Billboard.
John: And was that really the second song you'd ever written, Rod?
Rod: Well, for years I've been saying that. It's, it's actually the third because there's one I complete forgot, which was a very sort of derivative of.... When the Beatles first came out, I immediately wrote a song which sounded a little bit like "Please Please Me." But it was the third song that I ever wrote.
John: But, Colin, you took on a vocal which was very distinctive from the start. But most singers at the time were affecting American accents, but you always and have always sung in your English accent.
Colin: Yeah, I think as much as possible I like to sing-
John: Was that to set yourself apart?
Colin: I just thought it sounded more genuine. I feel a bit embarrassed to sing in an American accent. I think once or twice, I've drifted a bit. You know, the song sort of demanded it
John: Mm.
Colin: but if I can, I don't sing in an American accent 'cause I just think it's just a bit daft, you know, really. But what intrigued me was this writing of the first song. Our first producer, Ken Jones, in the middle of a long chat, said, "You know, we've got a session coming up in a couple of weeks' time" - our first session in a proper studio - "you could always write something for it," and then went on talking about other things. And I didn't give it a second thought, and Rod turned up about three days later with "She's Not There," and Chris wrote a really good song which became the B-side, called "You Make Me Feel Good," and I was utterly amazed because I thought songwriters, that was a different kind of person. It wasn't people in bands that got on the stage. They were just different somehow.
John: Yeah.
Colin: And it was wonderful. I mean, these guys came up with these two great songs, and when I heard them, I thought either one of them could have been a hit record.
John: And they were in America, so you become big stars almost overnight. Chris, do you remember that sense of suddenly going from the pubs of St. Albans to
Chris: Well, it was a great shock, actually.
John: to the arenas?
Chris: In fact, we heard that we were number one in Cashbox while we were recording, we were in Decca, weren't we? And they came, and they phoned us up and said, "You're number one," which was unbelievable.
John: And you went to Graceland at that time, didn't you? Did you go and visit Elvis?
Colin: We did.
Chris: He was out.
Colin: He was out, yeah.
John: Elvis had left the building.
Chris: Yeah.
Colin: There was no security at all. We just walked through the gates, and we literally walked up the path and knocked on the door.
Rod: We said, "Is Elvis in?"
Colin: His dad answered the door. He-
Chris: His uncle, wasn't it?
Colin: Or his uncle. He said, "It's a real shame. Elvis is filming in Hawaii. Elvis would have loved to have met you guys." We didn't think any more of it at the time.
Rod: Well, we thought that it was just Southern hospitality, didn't we?
Colin: We did, really, yeah. But he did say that- "Make yourselves at home. Have a wander around. Have a-"
John: Yeah.
Colin: And it was so, it was a very exciting for us.
Rod: But then a few years later, in fact at the end of the '90s, I was doing an interview with an Irish DJ, and he stopped me and said, "I can't believe you didn't know." Said, "I'm an Elvis freak. He knew who you were; he had your songs on his jukebox."
John: Really?
Rod: He had three of my songs on his jukebox, which is absolutely unbelievable.
John: You didn't see that jukebox during that visit, then?
Colin: Mostly, we were walking around the outside.
Rod: Yeah.
John: Alright.
Colin: And we saw his motorbikes and all that sort of thing.
Rod: We, we felt like we were intruding really, and we, we didn't wanna....
John: Well, let's get back to 1967 and heading into the studio with that thousand pounds that CBS gave you. Which I guess even in 1967 doesn't buy a lot of Abbey Road time
Colin: No.
John: because that's an expensive studio, so were all the songs written before
Rod: Yeah.
John: you started recording them? Pre-written.
Rod: Um, not before we started.
Chris: No, no, they weren't no, no.
Colin: No.
Rod: Before each session, the song was totally written before we went in to record
John: Right.
Rod: each song.
Colin: And most of them were very well rehearsed as well, so we just went in
Chris: In a live situation.
Colin: Yeah, we just went in and played them, so we didn't have to do too much working out in the studio, except for added harmonies.
Rod: And there were quite a few added ideas
Colin: Yeah.
Chris: Mm, yeah.
Rod: That were going on in the studio.
Colin: But the basis of the tracks, we knew what we were gonna do, so we just played it, and that was it.
Rod: But we were like kids in a toy shop because suddenly we did have these, well, seven tracks, as it was, and it just felt fantastic to us, you know, and for the first time we were allowed to put our own ideas in, had the mixes and the harmonies in the same perspective that we really wanted, and it helped us a lot.
John: And Chris White, you were writing songs; Rod was writing songs.
Chris: Yes.
John: Was it collaborative at all, or were you writing totally separately and then bringing the ideas to the studio?
Chris: Well, it, it was collaborative in a way, but the songs were written individually, but we all put ideas in.
John: But what's interesting is there's such a, I guess, a diverse range of songwriting styles, but the sound of the record is very clearly unified. You must have been on the same wavelength, then.
Chris: We must have been. We didn't think about that at the time; we just needed songs.
Rod: And, the sort of thing that would happen would be Chris would come up with a song like "Beechwood Park," and the original chords were [plays piano], and I would maybe add the little baroque thing, which was [plays piano].
John: Interesting you say, "Baroque thing," 'cause it's often described as a baroque pop record, isn't it? So was that intentional? Were you aware of baroque music? Was that an influence?
Rod: Well, I, no, we weren't consciously trying to put things in, but, you know, the classical thing, I'd always loved Bach, for instance, so the middle part of "Hung up on a Dream" for instance, goes, uh, [plays piano]. You know, so all those things just were natural.
John: Yeah.
Rod: I mean it was all done quite quickly, you know? It was all quite naturally quite an outpouring.
John: And on that track, on "Hung up on a Dream," as well, we hear one of the key instruments on the record, which is the
Rod: Yeah!
John: the Mellotron, which the Beatles, I guess, had left in that studio.
Rod: Yeah.
John: And we have a Mellotron here
Rod: You do.
John: today, which is, in a way, it's, it's a primitive sampler, isn't it? Because it has a tape within the keyboard itself, and it's taking sounds and then literally looping them.* So how were you incorporating this...
Rod: Well, I mean one of the legacies of the Beatles having just walked out, apart from the technological things, was the fact they'd left a few instruments lying around, and I thought of it, first of all, as an orchestra substitute, but of course, it's got totally its own sound. And I think that a lot of the album - I don't know if you agree, Chris - a lot of the songs were about color and colors.
Chris: Exactly, yes.
Rod: And in something like "Changes," for instance, Chris's song, we were aware of color all the way through, so we would start with the Mellotron [plays the Mellotron introduction to "Changes"]. Then we would go into
John: And that literally sets the tone for the
Rod: Well, it does.
John: for the song, but then everything disappears, and it's just voices, in fact, isn't it?
Rod: It's just voices and [indistinct]
John: And there's some bongos underneath the voices.
Chris: And piano.
Rod: And piano, of course, yeah.
Chris: Yes, keep us in tune.
Rod: And then, we changed the chords in the middle of "Changes." [Plays piano] And change, in the harmonies. Into the big chorus.
John: And that's the sort of stuff you don't normally hear in pop music.
Rod: But it all felt very natural at the time.
Chris: But did then also, 'cause we were short of tracks, we had to get the drummer singing and the guitarist singing, which they didn't normally do. Do you remember?
Rod: Sometimes quite a long way from the mike, as well.
John: So it was often five-part harmonies, then, was it?
[All three speaking at once]
Rod: Well, yeah, occasionally.
Colin: Not often; once in a while.
Chris: No, just on that one.
John: Once.
Rod: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: And while we were doing that one, 'cause EMI worked a strict hours, we were just running over, and then the door opened while we were singing the harmonies with everybody, and they came and started moving the piano out while we were recording.
John: It sounds like a band on a unified mission
Chris: Mm.
John: a real group effort, I mean, a track like "Brief Candles." You're all singing on that track
Colin: Yes, yes.
Chris: Mmhm, yeah.
John: in different parts of the song, and then, Colin, you're taking the chorus, I think, aren't you?
Colin: Yeah, I took the third verse and the chorus.
John: The third verse and the chorus. But there's no sense of competition. It's not like the White Album, which comes out in the same year, which could be four different groups playing.
Chris: We just wanted to make it as we heard it when we were writing it, really. We didn't get the chance before that.
John: There's one song that possibly does stand alone, that doesn't sound like the rest of them, and that's "Butcher's Tale," Chris, which is your song. A chilling story told from the perspective of a, of a young soldier
Chris: Yes.
John: in the trenches in the first World War.
Chris: I had a uncle that had died at the age of sixteen on the Somme, and I've read A.J.P. Taylor's book The Donkeys, and I remember going to rehearsal, and in my car, I suddenly thought about sixty thousand casualties before breakfast, and it actually shocked me so much I had to pull over [to] the side of the road, so, yeah, that's how that song started.
John: Yeah. And it's just your voice with a pump organ.
Chris: I'd bought a pump organ in a second hand store, and then we had to take this whole pump organ with a high Gothic top on it to Abbey Road Studios. On the top of the van, wasn't it? Or something?
Rod: I can't remember. [Indistinct] Yeah.
John: And so you wrote that and delivered it in the studio and then didn't do it again until, well, you reformed a few years ago and you played a series of gigs as the Zombies playing Odessey and Oracle.
Chris: It was [a] reunion rather than reforming.
John: Right. But that was the only time that you've sung it since.
Chris: Yes, yes.
John: Can we persuade you here
Chris: I can have a go.
John: for another, one-off.
Chris: Alright, I'll have a go.
John: Just to give us a sense of what was happening in "Butcher's Tale." We don't have a pump organ here today, so Rod's on
Rod: No, no.
John: Rod's on the piano.
Chris (sings): A butcher, yes, that was my trade
But the king's shilling is now my fee
A butcher I may as well have stayed
For the slaughter that I see
And the preacher is his pulpit
Sermoned, "Go and fight; do what is right"
But he don't have to hear these guns
And I bet he sleeps at night
And I
And I can't stop shakin'
My hands won't stop shakin'
My arms won't stop shakin'
My mind won't stop shakin'
I want to go home
Please let me go home
Go home
John: How 'bout that!? Forty-five years later, that's pretty... that's not bad. And the words all come back straightaway.
Chris: Yes.
Rod: It was one of my favorite songs on the, on the album. I mean, it's nothing, like nothing else on the album.
John: Yeah.
Rod: But I, the first time I heard that, it gave me shivers, actually.
John: Yeah. The best-known track on the album, the most celebrated one, I guess, is "Time of the Season" 'cause it was later released as a single. How was that song written, Rod?
Rod: It was written very quickly, actually. I think it's one of two songs on the album that you might put under the sort of, everything that was going on in the sort of love and peace sort of category at the time, which, you know, sounds a bit trite now, and we weren't completely taken in by it. We quite understood the naivete of what was going on, but with the immediacy of the media coverage, people were seeing for the first time in some ways the real horror and the practicality of what was going on with the Vietnam war and how horrible it was.
John: Mm.
Rod: And there was a real feeling around that people were changing the way they thought about things.
John: And were you tapping into that lyrically, then, with that song?
Rod: Well, I think so. You know: "It's the time of the season for loving." It was a, a bit of a reporting song as well, as "Hung up on a Dream" was: "They spoke the soft, persuading words / About a living creed of gentle love," you know. That was another tapping into that. It was one way of looking at what was going on but feeling some of it as well, you know? "Take you in the sun with pleasured hands."
John: Yeah.
Rod: "Show you ev'ryone / It's the time of the season for loving." I think in a sense it was tapping into some of that feeling.
John: And you started the program this afternoon with a stripped down version of that
Rod: Yeah.
John: And gave us a sense of the complex time signature** and the rhythm. So how did that develop? And that breathy "ah," Colin, that you, uh, dropping in there?
Colin: Well, I mean, I did do it in the program just now, but I didn't do it on the record.
John: Ah!
Colin: It's actually Rod.
John: That's Rod.
Rod: Again, going right back to "She's Not There," I've always loved the idea of broken rhythms in verses and then it developing into something that was more straight ahead and building to some sort of climax, and like the beginning of "She's Not There" (sings and claps the bass and drum parts), you know, that feeling?
John: Yeah, on that off-beat.
Rod: Yeah. With "Time of the Season," again, I fancied a broken rhythm, and I always used to write the bass and drum parts of quite a lot of my songs as well, so they were part of the song, and that was part of "Time of the Season" as well.
John: And it's been reported, Colin, that you weren't happy about the song. You didn't even want to record it.
Colin: Well, I
John: Is that true?
Colin: It wasn't one of my favorite songs, and also this was the last track we recorded***, and it was getting very pressured, money and time and everything, and I think the song was only finished in the morning before we recorded it in the afternoon.
John: Yeah.
Colin: And I was struggling a bit with the melody. Remember, we're singing, "It's the time of the season for loving."
John: "For loving," yeah.
Colin: At the, and the same time, I'm going, "Listen, Rod" - I can't use the language, but - "Rod, if you're so clever, you come in here, and you sing it." Lots of pointing going on. And Rod's going, "You're the bloody singer; you stand there till you get it bloody right!" And it, and this is at the time of the season for loving.
John: But I presume that that was quite unusual in a Zombies session, wasn't it? I can't imagine that you had many rucks in the studio.
Chris: No, we didn't.
John: You seem such civilized...
Colin: I don't think so.
Rod: Normally.
Chris: No.
Rod: Well, only- one of the reasons was 'cause we were so prepared
Chris: Yeah.
Colin: Yeah.
John: Right.
Rod: 'cause we had to be. We went in, and we knew what we were supposed to be doing.
Colin: We just- this track happened to be finished in the morning before we played it, so we hadn't really had the chance to rehearse it.
John: And after you finished recording, you still weren't convinced that this was
Colin: No.
John: I mean, you hear it now, and it just has classic status. It's just such a brilliant song.
Colin: I know.
John: And such a great recording.
Colin: It just wasn't a favorite of mine. I thought "Care of Cell 44" was the stand-out track.
John: Which is the first track on the album.
Colin: First track, and I think it's been released two or three times as a single, and it hasn't sold a copy, so what do I know about hit records?
John: So if that was the last song that you recorded in that session, did you leave the studio- was it, was there a bit of a bitter atmosphere when you finished?
Colin: Oh, no, I think we-
Chris: No, no.
Rod: No.
Colin: Went down [to] the pub after that.
Chris: Yeah.
Rod: It's all forgotten.
John: And had you found out that the band was splitting up by that time or not?
Colin: No, it, I think-
John: Had they broken the news to you?
Colin: No, no.
Rod: We did break up, though, before the album came out.
John: Yeah.
Rod: 'Cause I remember doing a Kenny Everett program, and he said, "Wouldn't it be wise to let the album come out first?" but, but we didn't.
John: Why? What, what prompted that decision? You must have known you had a fantastic record on tape there at Abbey Road. You didn't think, "Let's stick together and see what happens"?
Rod: We thought the record was really good, and it got good critics, but, you know, the first single came out, and it didn't really sell, and you have to realize that the world was a much bigger place in those days, and we were based very much in the U.K., and the income that we were getting from gigs in the U.K. was what everybody except for Chris and me were actually living on. Chris and I had a good income because
John: You were the songwriters.
Rod: we later found out that our songs were hits in quite a lot of the world, actually, and this money was coming back to us, and we were getting money from that, but the guy that started it was the guitarist, who said, "I'm gettin' married. I've got no money. I'm gonna have to think about something else." And he was the instigator, don't you think?
Chris: Yes.
Colin: He said that first, yeah.
John: Mm.
Colin: But I think that within a few months, the three non-writers would have had to have taken jobs, so I think it-
John: It was that bad?
Chris: Yeah.
Colin: It was.
Rod: And yet we'd just come back from the Philippines, where we thought that we were unknown, and somebody was making a huge amount of money out of us because we played to forty thousand people a night for a ten-night residency.
John: Mm.
Rod: We got eighty quid a night between us. For that.
Colin: For forty thousand.
Chris: We found out later
Rod: Yeah.
Chris: the manager's getting two thousand pounds a night.
Rod: Yeah.
Colin: So....
John: And just as a final twist to the release of that record, the sleeve comes out with one of the most famous typos in pop.
Colin: Yes.
John: Because the word odyssey
Colin: Yes.
John: is spelt with an E rather than a Y. Now you claimed for a long time that that was on purpose.
Rod: Well, the thing was that our flatmate, who was a very talented artist, was
John: This is Terry Quirk, isn't it?
Rod: Terry Quirk. Was doing the cover. We loved his original mock up, and very swirly, if you can imagine the cover.
John: Very psychedelic. It's very of the time, isn't it?
Rod: Yeah, and
John: It's very 1968.
Rod: and the letters are all sort of curled around, etc., etc.
John: Yeah.
Rod: And we saw his first ideas; we said, "That's fantastic," and we went away, and the next time we saw it - I think we were on tour or something - but the next time we saw it was when the record company presented us with the finished sleeve, and everything was going into production, and Chris and I said, "He spelt the name wrong!"
Chris: Nobody else noticed, did they?
Rod: And I said, "Look-" I and, and I said, "I'll tell you what-" because a lot of the tracks on the album are little stories
John: Yeah, they are little musical odes.
Rod: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Rod: and, and so we said, you know, we said it's a play on words and odyssey, you know, anyway, and we didn't tell Colin.
Colin: They didn't tell the rest of the band! They kept this secret; I thought it was done on purpose.
John: They seem to keep a lot of secrets from you.
Colin: They do! I tell you. And we were doing an interview, probably about five years ago, and Rod just told that story. I'm going, "Rod, you've kept that quiet for forty years!" you know?
John: Well, there's a lot more to explore in this discussion of the Zombies' album Odessey and Oracle, including its muted reception and its legacy since. How did a record that was virtually ignored when it came out get on to become hailed as one of the great albums of all time? Find out in the second part of this edition of Mastertapes, the B-side, which is at eleven o'clock next Monday night, but for now, my thanks to Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, and Chris White of the Zombies.
Just a reminder about the Mastertapes pages at the Radio 4 website where you can hear all the programs in this series and exclusive live versions and videos of some of the songs we've discussed with previous guests, including Paul Weller, Suzanne Vega, and Corinne Bailey Rae. As, uh, Colin Blunstone has laryngitis, it's gonna be a struggle, possibly, but you're gonna give us "Time of the Season." Colin, do you think you can do it?
Colin: I'll give it a go.
[Clip of in-studio performance of "Time of the Season"]
John: And if you want to hear more material recorded at this Mastertapes session, including exclusive performances, photographs, and videos, go to the Mastertapes pages via the Radio 4 website.
---
*This isn't an accurate description. The Mellotron sounds don't go on indefinitely like loops do; there are more or less certain beginnings and endings.
**The song is actually just in 4/4.
***According to the chronology in the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the last track recorded for Odessey and Oracle was "Changes" (on 7 November). There's no specific date given for "Time of the Season," just "August," although this photo set from the session gives the date as "September."
---&---
The B-Side
(First broadcast 17 December 2012)
John: Thanks for downloading Mastertapes from BBC Radio 4.
[Clip of in-studio performance of "Time of the Season"]
John: Hello and welcome to Mastertapes. That's the Zombies singing "Time of the Season" for our audience here at Maida Vale Studios. In the first part of this program, Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, and Chris White discussed the Zombies' ground-breaking 1968 album Odessey and Oracle. We heard about the making of a beautiful, baroque-pop record that's now regarded as a masterpiece, but which was largely ignored when it was first release. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios just after the Beatles had finished making Sgt. Pepper's there, and it contains tracks such as "This Will Be Our Year," "Brief Candles," and "Time of the Season."
[Clips of "Time of the Season," "Brief Candles," and "This Will Be Our Year"]
John: This is the B-side of the program; now it's the turn of our studio audience* to ask the questions about Odessey and Oracle and its legacy, and we'll have some more live music from the Zombies. But we start with a question from Nick Ledbury.
Nick: If Odessey and Oracle had been a huge success on its initial release, do you think the Zombies would have stayed together much longer, or did you, at the time, think the group had run its course?
Rod: I think it
John: Rod Argent.
Rod: I think it would have stayed together, yeah, definitely. I mean, I remember Chris and I particularly saying, "We've gotta find a way of moving forward in this business." I mean there was no way we wanted to leave under any circumstances. We thought it was a good album; Colin thought it was a great album when it was finished. And I think if people had joined in with that opinion, I think we would have definitely moved forward and stayed together.
John: So who wasn't backing it then? Was it the record company? They'd pulled out?
Colin: Well, I think it was radio as much as anything. It-
Rod: Kenny Everett played it.
Colin: Yeah.
Rod: He was about the only person.
Colin: Kenny Everett. But it didn't get the radio play; it didn't really get the media attention, and of course, that all adds up to no sales, and if, if there's no sales, then record companies aren't interested. So, it just didn't get the attention that we were hoping for.
John: Were you sad about that or angry about it? Was there any bitterness at all?
Colin: Well, I was, I was sad. I was really sad. I was very sad when the band finished. And frustrated.
John: Mm.
Colin: It's hard to judge your own work - it really is - but as far as I could tell, I thought it was really good.
John: And do you remember a certain moment in time when the band finished? Was there a meeting? Was there a moment when you
Colin: There-
John: all walked away, and you thought, "That's it; the Zombies are over"?
Colin: There was a meeting, yeah, but I, I think, you know, the phone stopped ringing; it all went very quiet, and I kinda knew that something was afoot, and we had a meeting at Chris and Rod's flat, and the first one was - bless him - Paul Atkinson. I think he'd just-
John: Your guitarist.
Colin: Yeah. He'd just got married, and he had no money, and he said, "Guys, look, I've been offered a job," and it was in computers - up and coming computers in those days - and he said, "I've been offered a job; I'm gonna have to take it." That was it, really, with Paul leaving. I think we all thought that it was best that the band ended.
John: Next question, this one's from Melanie Ames, and she has a question about Odessey and Oracle. Where's Melanie?
Melanie: Regarding the song "Care of Cell 44," who is in prison, and are you, as the story teller, reading the letter or writing it?
John: Now this is interesting 'cause this is the first track on the album.
Rod: Yeah.
John: Which starts with a story apparently written as a letter, as Melanie says there, to a prisoner.
Rod: D'you know, I, I started writing the first line of a love song; it was just a love song. And I thought it'd be really nice to throw a curve, and the way I thought about it was it was a guy writing to a woman in prison, and then-
John: And would you have had that piano line that starts the album as well at the same time, or do you work that melody around that first lyric?
Rod: I think I started with that, actually, to be honest, the, uh-
John: Just give us, yeah, remind us how it-
[Rod plays the opening piano part of "Care of Cell 44"]
Rod: And then, you know, then into the- [to Colin] Do you wanna sing a bit of it? Do you wanna try it?
Colin: Yeah, I'll give it a go.
John: Put Colin on the spot again. Colin Blunstone has been diagnosed, well, has actually been banned from singing
Colin: Yeah.
John: by his doctor for the last four weeks as we heard in the first part of this program.
Colin: Yeah.
John: And he managed to get through "Time of the Season"
Colin: Just about.
John: but now we're gonna have a go at-
Colin: There might be some high bits in this, depending on how far we go.
Rod: We'll just stop if...
Colin: Yeah.
(Sings) Good morning to you, I hope you're feeling better, baby
Thinking of me while you are far away
Counting the days until they set you free again
Writing this letter, hoping you're OK
[When Rod stops playing]
Oh, good.
John: And we only get a hint of the soundscape of the song as it's recorded because the other distinctive feature of that song, Chris White, is your bass playing, which is... we talked in the first part of this program about following the Beatles into Abbey Road; they had just finished making Sgt. Pepper's, but the bass playing on that record is, is
Chris: Well-
John: I would say McCartney-esque.
Chris: Well, actually, it's down to Rod. He knew exactly what he wanted on the bass at that time, so, he was the one who inspired it and wrote it, really.
John: What, and told you how to play it, or so that it wasn't improvised?
Chris (tongue in cheek): No, I'd never let him do that.
John: No. And Colin, when Rod comes to you with a lyric
Colin: Yeah.
John: And says you're gonna sing this and shows you how you sing it, do you ever stop and think, "What's this about? Can I sing this song?" It's quite a strange tale of the man writing to
Colin: It is quite a strange-
John: but in fact, we, it's not even specific in the song, is it? Whether it's a man or a woman who's singing and who's receiving the letter?
Rod: It could be either, it could be.
John: Could be either, but you had in mind that it was a man writing to a woman?
Rod: Well, I think, I always think, sort of
John: Yeah.
Rod: put myself in that position.
John: Yeah.
Colin: Yeah, I, I always thought that-
John: And Colin, do you say, "What's going on in this song?" when...
Colin: I might do. I mean, one thing I would say is that I can struggle on something that someone else might write that sounds really simple, and I can really struggle on it.
John: Right.
Colin: But with Rod's melodies - and Rod's always said that he learned to write songs when he was thinking of me singing them, and in many ways-
Chris: Me too, yeah.
Colin: Well, professionally, I've learned to sing playing these guys' songs, so it usually comes to me quite naturally when they write songs.
John: And let me throw it back to Melanie Ames, who asked the question originally. You've been listening to that song for a long time, and what did you imagine was going on in that lyric?
Melanie: Sounds like it's written from a woman's perspective.
John: Right.
Melanie: To me. It's why I've always wondered.
John: Now, it's a particular favourite of yours, is it?
Melanie: Yeah.
Colin: Me too.
John: It's your favourite, Colin?
Colin: It is mine.
John: Yeah.
Colin: And I've always thought that it was a man writing to a woman. Always.
John: Mm. Let's move on again. Next question's from John Berry.
John Berry: What was it like being so young and getting on the Motown tour bus then having to do a singing turn?
John: You're on the Motown tour bus. This is at the height of fame, I presume.
Rod: Dick Clark Tour.
Chris: Dick Clark Tour, really, yeah.
Colin: It was the Dick Clark tour, tour bus, yeah, but, but
Rod: All the great black acts on it, though.
Colin: There was some wonderful black acts on. We were sitting amongst them, and-
John: Who, who was there with you?
Colin: Uh...
Chris: The Velvelettes.
Rod: Velvelettes.
Colin: The Velvelettes, the Ikettes.
Chris: The Adlibs.
Colin: Adlibs. There were so many.
Rod: I can't remember.
Chris: Jimmy Soul.
Colin: 'Cause there were about fifteen acts on the show.
Chris: The Impressions, too.
Colin: But anyway, we're up at the back of the bus with all the wonderful black acts, and I think they were ready to accept us, but before they would fully accept us, we had to sing a song.
Rod: 'Cause they all sang something.
Colin: Yeah.
Rod: Then they turned to us, didn't they?
Colin: Yeah, and, and, so Rod and I, we just had to sing a cappella, and we kind of disagree about what we sang, but the fact is we did. We were nine-
Rod: I think you're right, actually, 'cause you always say we sang "If I Fell."
Colin: Because I-
Chris: No, you didn't, no.
Colin: That was it?
Rod: Well, OK, well, I, my memory, Chris, was that we sang "[A] Hard Day's Night."
Chris: Yeah.
Rod: And I said, and I said to Colin, "Just start singing it, and I'll sing a harmony."
Chris: Hmm.
Colin: Yeah.
Rod: And we did it, and they, they loved it after that, didn't they?
Colin: Yeah, we passed.
John: And you were accepted? That was almost passing the audition?
Colin and Rod: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, 'cause they used to sing gospel
John: Yeah.
Chris: At night, all night. 'Cause we used to drive five hundred miles overnight [and spend] every other night in a hotel.
John: And that's a real creative awakening. I mean, showed you the road literally.
Rod: On alternate nights, we would travel through the night. When everyone settled down about three o'clock in the morning, someone would go, [hums], and then most of the black guys on the tour would build up a chord, and then someone would sing a spiritual, and it would just make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I mean, that was really fabulous. And the other thing I remember, which was not musical, was that we didn't quite understand what the racial tension was in the south in those days, and Colin and I walked out of a restaurant one night, getting back on the bus, and with our arms round each of the Velvelettes. I remember Colin had his arm around one of the Velvelettes; I had my arm around the other one. And there was complete silence in the restaurant, wasn't there? And the tour manager came up and said, "You're gonna get us shot. I'm serious, man; you're gonna get us shot. You can't do this."
Colin: It was scary.
Chris: Mm.
Rod: Yeah.
Colin: Very scary.
John: And what were the gigs like? You were sharing a bill with these acts.
Colin: Oh yeah, 'cause there was sort of fifteen acts on the bill, so everyone would only do a couple of tunes. That's the funny thing, you know? I mean, we play for two hours now. You've travelled all that way, and you get up on the stage, and you play two tunes, and then you're off. Ah, that's fantastic! I mean, more drinking time, really.
John: Our next question comes from a local resident and longtime Zombies fan, a Mr. Paul Weller, who describes himself as a working musician.
Paul: Well, yeah, I'd like to ask you how you felt with recent years now that the album has been re-appraised and put in its rightful place as well, but how did it feel after all those years of it being a lost classic?
Rod: It was really unlooked for, Paul, and I have to say you were something to do with that
Chris: Yeah.
Rod: because the first guy I remember who was a great contemporary musician at the time talking about it, as I remember it, is when the Jam were number one, and you said it was your favorite album, and it completely knocked our socks off that you said that.
Colin: I find it so heartening because although we thought we'd recorded the best album we possibly could and it did pick up some quite good reviews, as, um, a commercial project, it was a disaster, and I can't help feeling that we finished the band on a bit of a down. I thought it was incredibly sad that we started off with huge hit records, and at the end, three years later, we're just having no success at all.
John: And in debt as well.
Colin: And in debt, yeah. So for all these years later, for people like Paul and others
John: Mm.
Colin: to come out and say they think it's a really worthwhile piece of work, I found it really, really heartening.
John: And Paul, when did you first come across Odessey?
Paul: There was, uh, an album they put out in, uh, I think must be like sort of mid-70s, '74 maybe, '75, I'm not sure, called, maybe Time of the Zombies; it was like a compilation thing, anyway. And it was a double album, and one of the albums was the whole of Odessey and Oracle, which I hadn't heard at the time, but that was the first time I ever heard it. And I can remember the time when I heard it was autumn, and we heard it round my mate's flat, who lived in near Woking Park, so it was kind of all that sort of feeling to it, as well, the autumnal sort of feeling and the kind of, you know, slight melancholia thing to it. But it just made a massive impression on me, you know.
John: And it stayed with you, as well, and it-
Paul: It always stayed, yeah.
John: influenced you as well?
Paul: Always, yeah. Always.
[Simultaneously]
John: And still your favorite record?
Paul: Thank you. Thank you for do-, thank you for it, yeah. [To John]: Yeah, to this day, yeah, and always, you know, and so many times over the years, I've gone out and bought that record to give to someone who's never heard it before because I think everyone should hear Odessey and Oracle, you know? Everyone in the world.
John: Let's move on again. Next question's from Sue Grant.
Sue: What was the inspiration for the song "A Rose for Emily" from Odessey and Oracle?
John: Second track on the album. Very sad song about loneliness, really, isn't it?
Rod: Well...
John: That seems to be a character study of, of a woman.
Rod: Yeah, it is
John: Alone.
Rod: but in fact, I'd just read a, a William Faulkner short story called "A Rose for Emily," and I can't even remember what that story was about now. It was a long, long time ago. And the song was nothing about the short story, but I loved the title; I thought it was a very evocative title. And just decided to write it.
John: And the lyric agai- I mean, "Summer is here at last / The sky is overcast / And no one brings a rose for Emily," I mean, really, it's heartbreaking stuff, isn't it? And it taps in also [to] something that Paul Weller was talking about: that autumnal quality.
Rod: Yeah, he's right.
John: And it is, and it's quite interesting Paul first heard the album, has memories of it being, of listening to it in autumn. When was it written and recorded? It was spring, wasn't it?
Rod: It was written- I think it was recorded throughout a year, a year really.
Chris: June to November [indistinct]
Rod: Oh, June to November, oh, OK
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
John: Right.
Rod: so it was an autumny something. But it actually- I didn't listen to the album for ages after the initial sort of impact or lack of impact or whatever, and then when I went back to it, I thought it's extraordinary 'cause it has got such an English, autumnal feel to it, and it wasn't something I was particularly aware of at the time. Obviously, something like "Beechwood Park," which talks about, you know, "As the days grew
Chris: Yes, yeah.
Rod: "dark in, in Beechwood Park" and
John: That's one of your songs, Chris, "Beechwood Park."
Rod: That's one of Chris's songs.
Chris: That's right. My father had the local village store. We used to deliver to a place called Beechwood Park. It was a big area, which was actually a girls' private school.
Rod: They didn't like it, Chris, did they?
Chris: No, they didn't.
Rod: That you'd written a song about it.
Chris: They didn't like it.
John: They didn't like it?
Rod: No.
Chris: No.
John: Didn't like these long-haired...
Chris: That's right, yes.
John: Pop stars singing about-
Chris: I think they wanted royalties.
John: Next question. This one's from, uh, a BBC colleague of mine, Radio 3 and World Service Presenter Samira Ahmed.
Samira: Rod, I was particularly interested in the huge number of R&B covers that the Zombies did, and they were- in the sixties, there seemed to be a lot of imitators, but [it] struck me that the Zombies weren't doing imitations; they were doing new interpretations, so I don't know if that's partly your love of classical music in the background, but particularly your version of "Summertime," which I just think is one of the most beautiful versions I've ever heard. Just interested in how that came about, how you chose to do your covers.
Rod: Well, oh, I think right from the beginning, actually, we were doing unusual material. I mean, "Summertime" is [plays the melody for the line "Summertime and the livin' is easy" on the piano]. Well, "She's Not There" is [plays the melody for the line "Well, no one told me about her"]. It's around the same sort of scale, you know.
John: And you recorded those two songs around the same time, didn't you?
Rod: Um...
John: Must have been very close.
Rod: Yeah, we did.
Colin: Yes, we did. It was [indistinct] first session.
Rod: But also another thing is that on "Time of the Season," there is an affectionate nod towards "Summertime" because where it says, "Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good looking" in "Summertime," "Time of the Season" says, "What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?" That's just a little affectionate nod in, in the direction of "Summertime." It's just always been a favorite, and, and we did it right from the beginning didn't we?
Chris: Hmm.
Rod: When we very first started.
John: And I think it's a particularly brilliant vocal delivery on that one, Colin.
Colin: Oh, thank you.
John: Uh, becau- I mean, it's so restrained. And the version that you do, it has a swing to it.
Rod: Hmm.
John: Doesn't it? It has a very languid sort of feel that you tap into that vocally as well. I mean, do you remember recording that? It's an early session. I presume, you know, you're young, first time in the studio. A pressure on or did it just come naturally?
Colin: Well, I think the lucky thing was that I was with all my mates, you know, so we'd been playing together for some time, and it didn't feel particularly pressured, I don't think. And also, of course, when you're eighteen years old, as I think most of us were at the time, you don't know what's at stake. You don't realize this could be a hit record, could completely change your life. For us, it was just a night out in the studio; it was really exciting.
John: Yeah.
Colin: And I think we did "She's Not There," "You Make Me Feel Good," and "Summertime." I think we completed them.
[Overlapping]
Rod: And "It's Alright with Me." Four tracks in one
Colin: And "It's Alright with Me" in, in one evening.
Rod: One evening.
John: Wow.
Colin: So, like, seven till ten, we just bashed them out.
[Overlapping]
Chris: And wasn't that the session where the engineer got drunk? He went to a wedding. We had to carrry him out? Yeah.
Colin: We- He was drunk, yeah! It was! It wasn't the best start for us, really, because we-
Rod: Tell that story!
Colin: Yeah, the engineer had been at a wedding all afternoon. We were playing in the evening, and when we got there, not only was he really drunk, but he was very aggressive as well. 'Cause he was screaming down the headphones at us, all sort of things that I couldn't repeat now. And I can remember thinking, "If this is professional recording, I don't think this is for me." 'Cause that's fifty years ago. But we had a stroke of luck, I have to admit: he passed out. After about forty-five minutes. And so we had one Zombie on one leg, one Zombie on another leg, and one Zombie on each arm. We-
Rod: I had the right leg. Did you-
Colin: You had the? No, I don't- Think I had the left leg. We had to carry him up three flights of stairs, and we got a black cab, and we chucked him in, and then, his assistant engineer took over, and his assistant engineer was Gus Dudgeon.
Rod: That was the first session he'd ever done.
Colin: It was the first session [indistinct]
John: Who went on to work with Elton John, produced all those Elton John albums.
Colin: Elton John, Kiki Dee
John: Yeah.
Colin: He produced most of the early Elton John albums, probably six or seven of them.
John: But he was put in the hot seat, literally
Rod: Yeah.
Colin: Yes.
John: because his boss was drunk.
Chris: And he was only a tape op[erator] before that.
Colin: He was a tape op, and he had to take over and be the engineer, so he engineered most of, uh, "She's Not There."
Rod: And mixed it.
Colin: And mixed it. So it was a strange situation, really: it was his first session, and he went on to be, probably, at one time, the biggest producer in the world.
John: Yeah.
Colin: And it was our first session as well.
John: And that, I suppose, accounts for the calmness in that vocal delivery 'cause once you'd got rid of the drunken engineer
Colin: Yes.
John: you could just relax [indistinct] session.
Colin: It was such a relief, actually, to get rid of him.
John: Let's move on again. Next question's from Nigel Scott.
Nigel: I worked at Sun Alliance in St James's Street, London for a short while in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, I started a few months after Colin had left there. Now, surely, there must have been offers that would have made an insurance job unnecessary. What does Colin remember from that time?
John: We should just explain this is just straight after you finished recording Odessey
Colin: Yes.
John: and then the band splits up
Colin: Yes.
John: and incredibly, you went on to become an insurance clerk.
Colin: I did. I did. And I must admit it was in the summer when the band finished, and I started just sort of lying around the house. I lived with my parents. And my dad was a Northerner; he was a quite straight-talking [man], and he said to me, "If you think you're just gonna sit around the house for the rest of your life, you got another coming, so get up and get yourself a job." And I worked in the burglary department, and it amazed me: I thought we'd be arranging burglaries when I walked in there. The burglary department! And I was always waiting for someone to phone up and say, "Look, we've got a nice little job going, uh, we, we need a little bit of back up," you know? But I presume - 'cause I never quite worked out what we were doing - I presume we were insuring against burglaries, and, uh, I stayed there for a year.
John: A year!?
Colin: A year.
John: And, what, no singing in between, you weren't with other bands?
Colin: No. It wasn't till "Time of the Season" was a huge hit in America then all offers started coming into the burglary department. And it was a, it was a very busy company; there wasn't time to be talking to record companies
John: Yeah.
Colin: while we were doing the insurance, so reluctantly, I had to retire from my insurance career.
John: And Nigel Scott, was there a plaque there where, uh, Colin Blunstone used to sit at the Sun Alliance offices in St. James?
Nigel: There wasn't a plaque, but people used to say, "You've got long hair" - you wouldn't, might not believe that now - but they said, "You've got long hair; we used to have a guy with long hair here, Colin Blunstone. He was a singer in the Zombies. D'you ever hear of them?" And said, "Yeah, sure, why wasn't I here six months ago!?" You know?
Chris: What band are you in now?
John: And you say it was later that "Time of the Season" became a big hit in America. In fact, Odessey and Oracle wasn't even released in America when it first came out here, was it?
Colin: No, it wasn't because I don't think there was any interest over there. And I've, I've forgotten now: what's Al's surname?
Rod: Al Kooper.
Colin: Al Kooper.
John: Al Kooper.
Colin: From Blood, Sweat & Tears. He'd just become a CBS
Chris: A&R.
Colin: A&R man, and he came over to London, and he, and he picked up a whole stack of albums, and Odessey and Oracle was the one that shone out to him, and he went back and had this conversation with Clive Davis, who was head of CBS at the time, and he said, "We have to get this album. We've gotta release this album," and Clive Davis said, "Well, we've already got it, but we weren't even gonna issue it," and Al Kooper really fought for it to be released.
John: Right.
Colin: And if he hadn't fought for it, "Time of the Season" would have never been a hit, and Odessey and Oracle would have never been released.
John: Let's have another question about one of the songs from the album. This one's from Simon Fine.
Simon: Who were the couples that you celebrated on the track "Friends of Mine"? And have they remained your friends?
John: Now this is-
Chris: Those that are still alive [have].
John: Yeah. This is a song which celebrates couples.
Chris: Yes.
John: And they're all listed in the song, in fact, aren't they?
Chris: Yes.
John: As part of the chorus.
Chris: Well, this is how songs develop, really, because I'd written it as quite a slow one, but then Rod said, "Let's take it up a bit in tempo." Then when we were rehearsing it, Rod again said, "Let's actually talk about real people," so they are real people.**
John: Joyce and Terry, Paul and Molly, Liz and Brian, Joy and David
Chris: David, yeah.
John: Kim and Maggie, June and Daffy
Chris: Duffy.
John: Duffy, isn't it?
Chris: Yeah.
John: Yeah. Jean and Jim, Jim and Christine.
Chris: Yes, they're all real.
Rod: Is there only Jean and Jim and Jim and Christine left, still together?
Chris: That's right, yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
[simultaneously]
Chris: Some of them are dead, too, yes.
Rod: Because of death.
John: Next question, this one's from Martin Steel.
Martin: There are many great tracks on the album, but what possessed the record company to release the great but uncatchy "Butcher's Tale" as a single?
John: Chris, back to you again. We talked about "Butcher's Tale" in the first part of this program.
Chris: Yeah.
John: It's your very chilling, harrowing tale of a soldier on the front lines in the First World War.
Chris: Certainly, as it was shock to us when they released it because it was the least likely one to be a single.
John: Yeah.
Chris: But I think the atmosphere at the time in America - 'cause it was, I think it was just in America they did it - it was the Vietnam war and all the rebellion against that, so somebody thought it would be a good idea to put "Butcher's Tale" out as the first single.
John: So they didn't, they didn't ask you what you felt?
Chris: No.
John: They never asked your opinion about anything; they just released the songs.
Rod: We didn't even know "Time of the Season" was out
Chris: Right.
Rod: until it was charting.
Chris: That's right.
Rod: Did we? In the States.
John: And did you not consider at the time, with "Time of the Season" in particular, "Let's get back together; let's cash in on this"?
Rod: Well, it was 1969 by the time that was a hit, and we broke up in '67.
John: Mm.
Rod: And in fact, Col- had we already planned your solo album by that time, Col? Can't remember.
Colin: Well, possibly.
John: Well, that's the great thing, isn't it, despite the fact that the band splits up - I mean, very often, a band splitting up is, is an acrimonious situation - but you stayed together.
Rod: Well, we-
John: And Colin, you went off and established yourself as a solo singer.
Colin: Yeah.
John: With Rod and Chris writing for you and supporting, so you were still a working unit together then?
Colin: Yeah, in some ways, it- nothing much had changed. It was just, you know, only the name had changed, you know?
John: Right.
Rod: But in a way, we never wanted to look back, you know? I mean, the thing was, it felt like Odessey was a great way to finish as the Zombies was, that was two years before this was a hit, and we wanted to look forward.
John: Do you finally understand why people hold this album with such reverence? Does it feel like you've almost caught up with the audience and you get a sense of what made it so special, or have you always known?
Rod: It's always difficult, you know, because to me, sometimes, even now - I don't know if you guys feel the same - it just feels like us, you know?
Chris: Yeah.
Rod: We just listened to it again, and it just feels like us, or we sort of remember recording it.
Chris: It was- yeah, it was of a time, and to us, it felt that at last, we'd [been] getting what we wanted to hear, you know.
Colin: I've often felt that Odessey and Oracle and "Time of the Season" have got a sort of a life of their own because no one's been promoting it, no one's been marketing it, and yet "Time of the Season," out of the blue, was a, a hit single, and even then Odessey and Oracle didn't sell very many. It took about ten years after "Time of the Season"
John: Mm.
Colin: and it started to sell, and to this day, it still sells in quite large quantities, and no one's got the slightest idea how because it hasn't been promoted, hasn't-
Rod: And not only that, I mean the thing is, a lot of famous rap artists use it as
John: Samples
Rod: as the basis for samples, yeah.
John: Right.
Rod: Jay-Z did a, a version with Melanie Fiona.
John: Really!?
Rod: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it continues in that way, too, which is great.
John: Long may it continue. That's all we've time for in this edition of Mastertapes. Thanks to our audience here at the BBC studios in Maida Vale. Thanks for all of your questions. And most all, thanks to Rod Argent, Colin, Blunstone, and Chris White, the Zombies.
Don't forget the Mastertapes page is at the Radio 4 website. You can download today's program as well as the rest of the series, and there's also exclusive content, including full versions of songs played live here at Maida Vale and videos of some of our Mastertapes guests, including Billy Bragg, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Paul Weller, who's back with us here tonight. And you can tweet us using the hashtag BBCMastertapes, but we leave you for now with the Zombies, Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone and Chris White, playing us out with- what are you gonna go out with, Rod?
Rod: Well, we thought we'd, we'd go out with the very first thing that we ever, uh, had any success with, which was "She's Not There."
John: Fantastic. Take it away.
[Clip of in-studio performance of "She's Not There"]
John: And if you want to hear more material recorded at this Mastertapes session, including exclusive performances, photographs, and videos, go to the Mastertapes pages via the Radio 4 website.
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*I guessed at the spellings of the names of the audience members who asked questions.
**The full names are listed in the Zombie Heaven liner notes: "Joyce Vale & Terry Quirk, Paul Atkinson & Molly Molloy, Liz Evans & Brian Baldwin, Joy Whitman & David Jones, Kim Elliot & Maggie Downing, June Brown & Duffy Coke, Jean Rodford & Jim Rodford, Jim Oakley & Christine Oakley."
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"This Will Be Our Year"
"Time of the Season"
