I Love You (The Zombies song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "I Love You" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Italian single sleeve | ||||
| Single by The Zombies | ||||
| A-side | "Whenever You're Ready" | |||
| Released | 3 September 1965 | |||
| Recorded | 8 July 1965 | |||
| Studio | Decca, London | |||
| Genre | Beat | |||
| Length | 3:22 (UK) 3:12 (US) | |||
| Label | Decca | |||
| Songwriter | Chris White | |||
| Producer | Ken Jones | |||
| The Zombies UK singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| The Zombies US singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| The Zombies UK singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"I Love You" is a 1965 song by the Zombies, written by their bassist Chris White. Written during a tour of France, the song was written at a time the Zombies' mainstream popularity was slowly fading. The song was released as the B-side of Rod Argent's "Whenever You're Ready" to both commercial and critical indifference.
The track got a resurgence in Japan two years after initially being recorded, when a cover in Japanese by the Carnabeats reached number two on the charts there, with it becoming a rock standard among Japanese bands. Similarly, in 1968, American rock group People! managed to reach number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 with it.
"I Love You" was written by bass guitarist Chris White, during a tour of France with his group The Zombies.[1] According to White, the process of writing the song was rather simple: "The thing that came first was the riff. That was the root of writing that one. In actual fact I think I nicked it off Tommy Roe".[2] The song was written during the same time as several other White and Rod Argent compositions, as they were preparing a recording session upon their return to the United Kingdom and therefore needed material.[1] White wrote the song on an acoustic guitar as opposed to a bass guitar which was his primary instrument.[2]
The group soon returned from France, and on 8 July 1965, the group entered Decca Studios in London in order to record "I Love You" along with several other compositions.[2] The song contrasted to the usual way of Zombies recordings; the group would usually perform several takes of one song and add overdubs to the one which was the best.[2] On "I Love You", however, the group recorded the verses and choruses first, before a studio engineer spliced one of the verses onto the beginning, effectively becoming the first song by the group to utilize tape splicing, which would become much more common for the group later on.[2]
Release and reception
The song stayed in the vaults of Decca Records while the group embarked on their second United States tour in mid-July.[3] Upon return however, the song was finally released on 3 September 1965, when it was issued as the B-side of the group's sixth single, "Whenever You're Ready",[2][4] which had been recorded a few weeks before "I Love You".[1][5] To the surprise and disappointment of the group, the single failed to reach the Record Retailer (later UK Singles Chart) chart.[4] According to Paul Atkinson, their guitarist, they thought that the song would become a huge hit, and "lost a lot of heart" when it didn't.[2] Following the success of People!'s version, the Zombies original was re-released long after their contract with Decca had expired.[4] This release swapped the A-side and B-sides in order to promote "I Love You".[4][6] The song once again failed to chart.[4]
The single was relatively well received upon release. According to Derek Johnson of New Musical Express, "I Love You" had a "more fortright approach" than the A-side, noting both the harmony vocals and organ.[7] He negatively noted the "unoriginal" title but closed with stating it to be a "most competent 'B' side."[7] Retrospectively, Daniel Williams writes: "Perhaps, as happened to sixties groups desperately looking to rediscover a magic formula, some fatal hesitancy was exhibited about which side of a single was which; ‘I Love You’'s structural inversion of chorus and verse makes it both a dramatic and memorably harmonic B side, trumping ‘Whenever You’re Ready’'s more traditional delights and wig-out organ".[8] Hal Horowitz believed that the song was good enough to become a hit.[9] "I Love You" proved to be successful in the Philippines, upon which the group sold out 10 concerts at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, near Manila, in March 1967.[10]
The song would not appear on an album in the US or UK for several years. However, in 1966, the song appeared on an unnamed compilation album in Sweden, which eventually would become known as I Love You.[11] The now famous album cover shows the band standing in a high-school sports hall in the Stockholm suburb of Solna.[12] This album has later been considered to be more of a studio album due to it containing hard-to-get releases not commonly found on albums.[13] It has on several occasions been re-issued, most recently in 2020.[9] "I Love You" was first issued in the US four years after its initial release, on a compilation album titled Early Days, which compiled several early recordings by the group.[14] The song would not get a release on an album in the UK until 1973, when it was issued on Time Of The Zombies in 1974, which compiled all their 1964–66 recordings.[15]
