Ignored             Obscured              Restored

I always loved the music of The Zombies.  They had a string of Billboard Top 10 hits beginning with “She’s Not There” (#2) and “Tell Her No” (#6), and ending with “Time of the Season” (#3) in 1969.

But as you know, the SotW likes to go further into the deep cuts.  So today I offer a cool Zombies’ track from 1965 called “Just Out of Reach.”

“Just Out of Reach” has a cool backstory.  While most of the Zombies’ songs were written by Rod Argent, “… Reach” was written by vocalist Colin Blunstone as one of their contributions to director Otto Preminger’s 1965 movie Bunny Lake is Missing.  It was only the second song Blunstone had written.  Argent and the group’s other main songwriter, Chris White, were on a deadline to produce three songs for the film but ran into a bout with writer’s block.  So, they challenged Blunstone to come up with something… and he did!

“… Reach” is a great example of ‘60s British Invasion/Garage Rock.  Its rhythm reminds me of The Monkees’ “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” (1966), though the melody is much different, and it has a cracking, ‘60s sounding Argent organ solo.  It was released as a single in the US but dropped off the charts without even breaking the Top 100.  Too bad because it deserved much better.

Enjoy… until next week.