The Zombie's - Odessey and Oracle - A Perfect Album

 A few days ago  I was knocked over by a person entering large appliance store. As I dusted myself off the security guard at the door said to me, "It's the time of the season". When he spoke those words to me I was remnded of a song I had not heard in quite awhile, and it wasn't a Christmas song.

When I was 15 years old I went through a “British Invasion” phase. Of course it began with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but soon it evolved into other lesser known but still awesome bands. The Animals, The Yardbirds and the Zombies were my favorites. I was eager to get my hands on any material by these groups. Since the local record store only carried basic completions by each band, I decided to place an ad in the “Wanted” section of the local paper looking for actual individual albums by these artists. Maybe there were people out there who had a few of these records and did not want them anymore. At 15 I did not too much money and figured this may be a good way to purchase a few of these bands records at a very low price. The day after the ad appeared in the paper I received a phone call from a woman a couple towns over. She had a few records by two of the bands I had listed in the classified ad and said she would sell them to me for $5 each.

 The next Saturday my father and I took a car ride out to see which records she had. When I got there she went over to a large cabinet filled with records and pulled two of them out. There was one by the Animals and one by the Zombies. We paid her the $10 bucks and headed home. As my dad drove I looked over album covers, reading every word, studying every picture

As I examined up the Zombies record. There was something different about it. The cover did not have the basic band photo cover which most of these British Invasion albums I had run across usually possessed. This one had weird psychedelic designs across it. There was a drawing of a couple dancing, next to a flower and a few other strange figures of people scattered here and there. But was even stranger was the title of the album was spelled wrong! Although my computer’s spell check keeps wanting me to change it now, the title on the record was spelled as Odessey and Oracle. It would not be until much later when I learned the spelling error was a mistake made by the album cover’s designer. I put the record on. Although at this point I was familiar with some singles by The Zombies such as “She’s Not There”, “Tell Her No” and “Time Of The Season”, only the later was on this album. As soon as I put the needle down I knew this album was leaps and bounds over those early singles. The songs coming out of the speakers were incredible. The whole album did not have a note out of place.

20 years later I am still amazed by this perfect album. An album which if you are a fan of music, any kind of music, you owe it to yourself to give this album a listen.

The first track on the album ,“Care of Cell 44” kicks off with a few notes from a harpsichord, probably the first time I had ever heard one present on a rock song. Then lead singer Colin Blunstone’s smoky smooth vocals come in. The song, relaying a letter from a guy to a girl in jail. He talks about her imminent release and how happy he is to have here returning home. His joy is shown by the raise in volume for the chorus “Feel so good. You’re coming home soon”. The vocals return to the regular volume and tempo before the chorus with the volume raised as the guy can’t control his enthusiasm any longer

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One thing about this song that always struck me as rather a little strange, maybe even bold, was how in 1967 the Zombies would put out a song about a women in prison and the guys waiting outside. You would think the opposite would have seen much more acceptable. But also this was a band named after a return from the dead creature whose sole purpose to seek out and eat peoples brains.

Track #2 “A Rose for Emily” for me brings to mind a grown up version of the character in Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” which I had just heard for the first time a few month before Odessy and Oracle. Now she is all grown up, growing flowers to sell to people buying them to give to their loved ones. Yet she never finds someone to buy a rose to her. Almost all acapella, the song features only Blunstone’s vocals with writer/keyboardist Rod Argent backing vocals and keyboard adding to the songs sorrow. Like so many other songs on Odessey And Oracle, the vocals supply the hook.

Track #3 “Maybe After He’s Gone” relays greatly the feeling of losing a girlfriend/boyfriend, perhaps your first, with them moving on to someone else. Feeling you will never find another, your only hope like the chorus says, “Maybe after he’s gone, she’ll come back and love me again”.

Track # 4“Beechwood Park” is a song telling about remembering a time in the summertime when you are just getting to know each other. When listening to the song, close your eyes and the guitars and keyboards bring images of the character walking on a beach with an off season wind swaying the trees around you.

Tracks # 5 and #6, “Brief Candles” and “Hung Up On A Dream”, continue in the style that is already making  Odessey And The Oracle such a great album. Both songs sounding like the Zombies had a whole orchestra in the studio with them. Later I learned the group did not possess enough money to hire more studio musicians. To create the sound of a backing orchestra, a mellotron was used.

Track # 7, “Changes” I always feel is best heard with headphones. Blunstone singing the chorus of “I knew her when summer was here crown and autumn sang how brown her eyes” sounds unbelievable coming into your ears from all around you. Track #8, “I Want Her, She Wants Me” tells how the heartbroken person of “Maybe After He’s Gone” did eventually find someone new.

In Track #9 “This Will Be Our Year” Blunstone sing how things have been tough but with the help of the person he is singing to, they managed to make it through. “And I won’t forget the way you held me up when I was down. And I won’t forget when you said ‘Darling I love you’. You give me faith to go on. Now we’re there, and we’ve only just begun” before showing the hope of the future with “This will be our year, took a long time to come”. From the first time I hear this song at 15 years old to the the present, this song has always been somewhere among my top 10 all- time favorite songs.

When track # 11 comes around the album finally allows it's self to become a tad upbeat. "Friends of Mine" is a very positive (almost) closing song. During the song many of The Zombie's friend's names are mentioned and you can tell the band is having a ball in the studio together. 

The song that once again reminded me of how great this album is comes appears as the albums last track.. After the single “She Not There",  “Time of the Season" was the first song I ever heard by the Zombies. The song fills me with images of a soul, a little psychedelics and even a touch of hippieness. When the end of the chorus says, “It’s the time of the season for loving you”, maybe it’s not what Colin Blunstone, Rod Agent and crew were saying but I always took it as for loving this album.

In Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 500 Albums of All-Time, Odessey and Oracle was ranked at 80. For my 15 year old ears back then as well as my 38 year old ones today, this album without one single note out of place, definitely rests nicely in the Top 10.