Artist: Love
Album: Forever Changes
Year: 1967
Length: 42:05
Genre: Psychedelic Rock / Baroque Pop
“What is happening and how have you been
Gotta go but I’ll see you again
And oh, the music is so loud
And then I fade into theCrowds of people standing everywhere
‘Cross the street I’m at this laugh affair
And here they always play my songs”
Well, well, Love, we meet again. Feels like not too long ago we encountered each other for the first time and here we are again. What will you bring for me today? What wonders and marvels will be at my ears this time around? I loved Da Capo, will I love this one as much? Who knows but the excitement and anticipation is killer as usual (even though the album has already started playing as I write this). We shall see.
It seems there’s a lot of history associated with this album. Coming so soon off Da Capo, the band was in jeopardy of breaking up due to a lot of struggles within the band itself. Members doing drugs, fighting for control and just not agreeing (especially between Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean, the two main songwriters) with the former even refusing to tour for some time, it seemed they had one last shot to give it a go. Trying to capitalise on the whole flower power and summer of love movement happening t the time, they decided to make it a more hippie style album, especially compared to the last one. It seems Arthur Lee, despite being part of the counter culture never subscribed to the whole flower power idea, stating that sunshine wasn’t enough to cure all the darkness in the world. SO as much as this album has those sensibilities of the hippie movement, there’s Arthur’s frame of mind sprinkled throughout to never get it to that point.
This is considered one of the greatest psychedelic music albums of all time and I guess I can sort of see why that is. Musically it’s incredibly strong and the band seems to be tighter than ever. They’ve expanded their talent and have grown considerably from the last album, delving more artistically into their work and pushing their song writing to the limits. However, it’s not really doing much for me. I think that’s more due to the style rather than the music itself. There’s a lot of elements of Folk here and we all know my sentiments towards folk, a genre I respect but just am not into. The only song I’ve previously heard from this album is “The Red Telephone” while taking my psychedelic music class. It was that and “7 and 7 is” that introduced me to the band. I always loved the latter way more than the former… so maybe that should have been an indication of how I’d feel about this album.
You really do get a sense that Arthur Lee is trying to take snapshot of how things were. A moment in time, a memory that he wanted to preserve before things got really bad. You can hear it in the music and in his vocals. He sings with a sort of desperation that’s hard to recreate. A desperation to just keep things together and make sure that they stay together. It’s almost sad, but never quite gets there.
As “The Red Telephone” plays it brings back vague memories of when I was in that class. Times seemed great. Had a best friend at the time (we’ve sadly parted ways in a really bad way) and we were in the class together, cracking jokes and all around just having a good time. It’s funny how life goes, eh? You think you have things set and things will stay that way. But sometimes even the best things turn bad. One second you’re super close to someone and love them and the next you find yourself hating everything about them. How does that happen? How do you go from being so close to so distant like you’ve never known them. Feeling like you suddenly are nothing and are made to seem useless and worthless in someone’s life is never a good feeling… but how can someone do that? How can someone just click that part of their brain off and throw someone away so easily like they’re a toy that they’re done playing with? How can some people be that awful?
God dammit album… what are you doing to me? I wanted to be happy not reminisce about sad shit. This album seems to have a weird power over me as it plays. It must be the vibe. Definitely has this solemn aura that just affects you. Funny, how music can do that to you sometimes…
Before this gets worse, I’ll sign off here and let the album finish.
Song of Choice: A House is not a Motel
-Bosco
PS. Finished it and I have to say it’s a really solid album and is strong overall. Good shit.
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