The Tremeloes' "Hello World"

Last month, I wrote about a riff that's in both the Moody Blues' "So Deep within You" from On the Threshold of a Dream and Rod Argent and Chris White's "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," which was recorded after the Zombies broke up.  At the time, I'd thought I knew an-other song that had a similar-sounding part, but I couldn't identify it.  Recently though, I listened to an anthology of the Tremeloes, and I discovered that I'd been thinking of the beginning of "Hello World."

The phrase in "Hello World" is longer than those in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," and it repeats more frequently.  The song starts with it played four and a half times.

In "Hello World," it starts on a different pitch relative to the key than in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," but the intervals are the same in all three (and the pitches of the first five notes are the same between "Hello World" and "So Deep within You").

(click the image to enlarge it)

(standard disclaimer that the notation may be wrong because I did it myself)

Unlike the other two, the notes in that phrase in "Hello World" are picked individually where the second of each pair of eighth notes are hammer-ons in "So Deep within You" and "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."

According to the liner notes in my Tremeloes collection (Silence Is Golden: The Very Best of the Tremeloes), "Hello World" was issued as a single in 1969.  On the Threshold of a Dream - the album on which "So Deep within You" appears - was also released in 1969 (specifically, April).  Apparently "So Deep within You" was the B-side to the "Never Comes the Day" single, released the same month.  According to the liner notes for Into the Afterlife, "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" was recorded in March 1968, although it wasn't released until Into the Afterlife in 2007.

So I have even fewer answers than I did when I wrote my original post.  Now I have three songs that were all recorded and/or released within about a year and that all share the same phrase.

The Moody Blues' "So Deep within You"

When I listened to the Moody Blues' On the Threshold of a Dream last month, the recurring guitar riff in "So Deep within You" caught my ear.  I figured out how to play it and confirmed that - save for the key - it's identical to a part in "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)," which was recorded by Chris White and Rod Argent shortly after the Zombies broke up.  (There are two versions of "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" on Into the Afterlife, but this riff is present only in the second version [track #18], the one with fuzz guitar.)

(click the image to enlarge it)
(standard disclaimer that since I did the notation myself, it might be wrong)

I didn't know how to indicate it in the notation, but the second note in each pair of eighth notes is a hammer-on.

In the Zombie Heaven liner notes, Paul Atkinson (the Zombies' guitarist) says that the Zombies were friends with the Moody Blues and used to go to their parties (p. 31).  While that provides evidence that the Zombies and the Moody Blues knew each other, it's slightly misleading as far as guitar players, since Atkinson didn't play on "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."  The Into the Afterlife liner notes explain that it was Mac McLeod.

The chronology is also troublesome.  The Into the Afterlife liner notes say that the session at which "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" was recorded was in March 1968.  On the Threshold of a Dream came out in April 1969.  But "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)" wasn't released until the Into the Afterlife album in 2007.  So while it would appear that there was some mixing of influences since the songs originated only about a year apart, since the riffs are so similar (with the same accidental even), and since the bands knew each other, it doesn't seem possible that the Moody Blues could have known "Telescope (Mr. Galileo)."  Apparently, the similarity is just a coincidence.