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A forgotten gem: Love - Forever Changes, 1967
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When the 60s generation recalls their decade in bursts of nostalgia, or likewise when those simply living one big music anachronism discuss that decade, a few select bands are usually left out, due to their radio-induced obscurity. Such bands include The Grass Roots, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, The Guess Who, The Velvet Underground, and Love – Love being one of the most obscure, if not the most obscure of that list.
Love hit the L.A. club scene in 1965, led by Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean. One of the first racially diverse American groups, their music fused Lee’s knack for garage rock R&B to Byrds-style folk rock. Their legacy rests on two groundbreaking albums released in 1967: Da Capo and Forever Changes.
Da Capo features a fusion of garage R&B freakbeat and progressive rock, as it showcased a feel for jazz and classical styles. Whether it was the psychedelic primal nature of “Stephanie Knows Who” and “7 and 7 Is”, or the Their Satanic Majesties Request vibe of “She Comes In Colors”, Love demonstrated a keen ability to compose colorfully rooted unbounded pop music – probably the reason they were refused sufficient air time.
Love’s magnum opus came in November of 1967 with Forever Changes, an album that would later be named the 40th best album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, charting above The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, The Doors’ The Doors, and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon – a fairly necessary list of albums to outdo.
The album begins with “Alone Again Or”, whose latin-infused acoustic balladry soars as MacLean recounts his incessant loneliness as he cries, “All the times I’ve waited patiently for you/And you’ll do just what you choose to do/And I will be alone again tonight my dear”. As the title lyric is read, each verse reaches a sonic counterpoint as Mariachi horns and cadent percussion resonate in ironic triumph. The overall tone itself is contradictory, with its tenacious rhythm and closure-filled verses. The opening track thus demonstrates Love’s thoughtful compositions both in lyricism and sound.
“A House Is Not A Motel” works like a fusion of The Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel with its jangled acoustic tones and R&B percussion. The track takes on a more societal approach as Lee laments, “The news today will be the movies for tomorrow/And the water’s turned to blood, and if/You don’t think so/Go turn on your tub/And if it’s mixed with mud/You’ll see it turn to gray.” The band further takes a step back musically, channeling the tones of Da Capo with its psychedelic guitar interlude and outro that starkly contrasts the acoustic suites most notable on Forever Changes.
The album’s focus returns to acoustic balladry with “Andmoreagain”, whose balladry this time is not joined by latin rhythms, but by orchestral string accents. This remains one of the more cryptic songs on the album with its purposeful written slur of a title. The song’s lovesick focus poses the question of what Lee means by “andmoreagain”; whether it references his love interest and, if so, in what way is he referencing? The most identifiable message of the song revolves around the bridge that reads, “And I’m/Wrapped in my armor/But my things are material/And I’m/Lost in confusions/‘cause my things are material.” The song argues in favor of a love that rids and frees one of their material obsessions that only keep the individual from demonstrating their true love. It is further possible that this love is a drug addiction that enraptures his life. Aside from the lyrics, the rhythmic progression of the song must be noted as it purposefully accents the lyrical “heart beating”, and drastically alters the melody as the song becomes more introspective.
One side note worth noting at this point is that Love’s employment of orchestral arrangements is beautifully natural, not sounding forced or placed with a lack of thought – a common error in music after this most creative of periods.
“The Daily Planet” is an up-tempo British Invasion-channeling derision of the bleakly routine society that we all inhabit. Lee rants, “In the morning we arise and/Start the day the same old way/As yesterday the day before and/All in all it’s just a day like/All the rest so do your best with/Chewing gum and it is oh so/Repetitious”. This is as close as Love gets to sounding like their influential Byrds, even if it is infused with non-Byrds elements. Helping to balance out the deviations away from the acoustic, “Old Man” is yet another acoustic suite, this time a direct profession of undying love that finds its power in poetic sincerity and carefully chosen multi-instrumental accents.
The middle section of the album follows with “The Red Telephone”, “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale”, and “Live and Let Live”. “The Red Telephone” continues the acoustic suite trend, this time communicating one of the album’s most memorably dreary lyrics: “Sitting on a hillside/Watching all the people die/I’ll feel much better on the other side/I’ll thumb a ride”. The pure honesty in questioning the need for one’s own existence and desiring a potential end is so bleakly human that it’s beautiful. “Maybe the People...” channels the same up-tempo Mariachi-horned drive as an amalgam of its predecessors, while driving home a criticism of the L.A. music scene and whether Love has a place in the opined superficiality of it all. “Live and Let Live” works in the same vain as “A House Is Not A Motel”, but this time discusses the issue of the trigger-happy violence so ever-present in the history of this country, whether it be the massacre of the Native Americans or the NRA’s obsession with the Second Amendment.
The closing sequence of the album begins with “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This”, whose unconventional acoustic progression follows Lee as he seems to simply recount the signs of summertime, although there’s a certain sarcastic vibe that might be mocking the hippie movement. Regardless, it is yet another example of Love’s modulations and rhythm dynamics that are second to none. “Bummer in the Summer” recounts the vocal tone of Dylan with a rarely heard piano-driven rhythm. This song, unlike the others, is the most influenced by R&B, although it has obvious folk rock influences in the acoustic stylings and the Dylanesque tone.
The album ends with “You Set The Scene”, the ultimate suite of this album, the magnum opus of the magnum opus. An unruly amount of movements and modulations, this track is the crowning achievement. Separated into two parts, the song speaks of social unrest, antiwar protest, standing for a cause, and a simple plea for a better world through one’s own enlightenment.
With Forever Changes, Love produced an album whose lyrical and compositional power transcends popular music. Few albums have been more important, and few albums will ever be more important. A truly forgotten gem.
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