Friday, November 9, 2018

"Just out of Reach" (Track by Track at Gibson)


[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Just out of Reach"


Rod:  This is one of Colin's, and, uh, it w- was it your first real [song]?

Colin:  I think it was my second song that I wrote.*

Rod:  'Just out of Reach'.

Colin:  Yes.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  I mean, we had to write for a deadline.  We'd been asked to write some music for Otto Preminger's film-

Rod:  Oh, Bunny Lake Is Missing.

Colin:  Bunny Lake Is Missing, and the way the deal was put together, they wanted three new songs written and recorded in about ten days.**  They had to be new songs, and, again, Rod and Chris didn't have a great backlog of songs, and so, uh, you know, I, I'd always been really intrigued and impressed by the way they wrote songs, and these were- this is one of the times when I thought, 'Well, at least I'll have a try', and so I wrote this song really for a deadline.  I mean, sometimes people say, 'How do you write a song?' and, and the answer would be:  you get the phone call, and, and that's what happened:  we got the phone call 'We need three songs written and recorded in ten days', so, um, I had a go, and this is the result of it, and-

Rod:  I, I think 'Just out of Reach' is a great snapshot of what sixties singles or records should sound like.  It's very sixties, very characteristic, but it was very naturally done.  I think it works great, and we often still do it on stage.

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*If I'm not mistaken, the first was "How We Were Before."
**The other two Zombies songs in the film are "Nothing's Changed" and "Remember You," both written by Chris White.