The Zombies represent a unique case study among British Invasion bands. They were a big hit and then a flop, an immediate success story and then a forgotten band, their most famous album only discovered by the mainstream after they’d already imploded.
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Aside from all that, they also delivered one of the most thrilling debut singles of all the British bands in “She’s Not There,” which hit the Top 15 in Great Britain and just missed the top of the charts in the U.S. in 1964. Here’s the story of this song and the wonderful band that created it.
Zombies Unite
The five-man lineup of The Zombies that recorded “She’s Not There” in 1964 were British school chums. After success on a local level, their big break came when they won a battle of the bands-style contest in 1963. That led to their first record deal with Decca (the British label that had passed on The Beatles and was trying to avoid a similar mistake).
The band chose Ken Jones to produce the record based on him being an acquaintance of bassist Chris White’s father. Their original plan was to record a rocked-out arrangement of the jazz standard “Summertime” as their first single. While Jones liked their take on the song, he wisely advised them to try to come up with their own original number.
The problem was none of the band members were even the least bit accomplished as writers at that point. (Four of the five band members were still teenagers at the time). And they had only a couple of weeks before their recording session was scheduled. Nonetheless, they accepted the challenge, and keyboardist Rod Argent came up with “She’s Not There.”
Bluesy Inspirations and High Notes
As Argent was noodling about trying to come up with a song, he noticed in his record collection the song “No One Told Me” by John Lee Hooker. He took the title phrase and made it the opening line of his composition, but nothing else about “She’s Not There” in its finished form resembled the blues song that got the ball rolling.
Argent came up with the song’s story wholly from his imagination. He built the musical foundation on his jazzy electric piano chords, and he wanted to incorporate the band’s three-part vocal harmonies as well. In addition, he tried to bring each section of the song to a big crescendo, knowing the band had a powerhouse vocalist in Colin Blunstone who could bring it home.
“She’s Not There” proved an immediate success and poised the band to be the next British Invasion success story. Sadly, their following singles didn’t do as well, especially in their native Great Britain, and their lack of success put so much pressure on them that they disbanded not long after recording their 1967 album Odessey and Oracle. That album gained a cult following, and eventually brought the band back into the limelight, so much so that they reunited and ended up in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Behind the Lyrics to “She’s Not There”
Argent’s lyrics for “She’s Not There” are clever in that the narrator isn’t speaking to the girl who’s left him behind, but rather to everybody else in their circle who understood her true character (or lack thereof). Well no one told me about her, though they all knew, Blunstone sings in withering tones.
Apparently, this girl left behind a trail of jilted lovers in her wake (how they all cried). It’s too late to say you’re sorry, he admonishes his confidants, because the damage has already been done. In the chorus, Blunstone uncorks a stream of all her beguiling characteristics, before revealing the reason it’s all to no avail: But she’s not there.
Argent’s brilliant keyboard work, combined with the complexity of the chords and the thrilling peaks of Blunstone’s vocals, make “She’s Not There” one of the shining singles of that era. Thankfully, The Zombies’ excellence was discovered in time to keep them from being one-hit wonders, as many other bands with such a distinctive debut might have been.
Photo by Stanley Bielecki/ASP/Getty Images
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