Love
Forever Changes
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NATN Recommended
Love
Forever Changes
Elektra, 2000
RiYL: Neutral Milk Hotel, The Zombies, Moby Grape, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
One of the genre's greatest accomplishments, the 1967 masterpiece Forever Changes has just been issued by Elektra in remastered form, complete with seven bonus tracks from the album sessions. If you've never been exposed to this record, this is a duty you must not shirk. The 11 songs of Forever Changes comprise one of the most timeless and diverse rock portraits ever put to wax.
Melancholic frontman Arthur Lee's genius lies in his method of approaching a subject from as many angles as possible. Lee drew much of his inspiration for the album from the social dichotomy of southern California in the late '60s: the summer of love was in full swing, but there was also a sense of impending dread, compounded by the realities of drug use and the realizations that the free-love, hippie lifestyle was not neccesarily going to lead us all into some blissful promised land, and a lot of people's lives would be soon undercut by their own hedonistic urges.
In Los Angeles, where Love lived - Lee in a large manse in the hills above Hollywood - the beach and the sunshine was one side of the story, and the Beach Boys' summery Pet Sounds could be heard streaming such moods out of radios. But the city also felt the dark side of the '60s mysticism era: the realities of inner-city life, the smog and pollution that came between the city's streets and its beloved sunshine, the increasingly dangerous drug scenes and strained race relations. To most, the drugged-out music of the Doors (who followed Love's early success to their own record deal) best exemplified this unsavory underbelly.
With Forever Changes, Lee and company acheived a rare and beautiful fusion of these two extremes - their unique sound could be sunny and uplifting, but also filled with a melancholy, world-weary dread. Lee's unique voice, undulating on waves of string and horn arrangements, could express joy and sadness within the same line.
Lee himself embodied some striking contradictions which aided his expression. He was accustomed to a steady intake of both heroin and LSD, the decadent, deadly opiate and the "mind-expanding" hippie staple. He was a mulatto who didn't easily fit into anyone's perceptions of a "black" or "white" musician. His music spoke eloquently to many, but Lee himself liked to stay secluded in his house, musing atop the hillside like some isolated guru. He was only in his early twenties, but he was convinced that his death was imminent (although he ended up being one of the lucky ones who did actually survive the '60s relatively unscathed). In many interviews, Lee has admitted he intended his third album to be his last words.
The music on the record is lush, orchestrated pop. The band had hinted at the sound with tracks like "The Castle" and "!Que Vida!" from their second album, Da Capo, but Forever Changes was largely a new creation, a delicate fusion of a smooth, malleable rhythm section, insistent acoustic guitars (plus the occasional fiery electric outburst), light sheets of horn and string arrangements, and Lee's wildly varied vocals atop the mix.
The remastered edition's bonus music comprises two alternate mixes, the A and B sides of the "Your Mind And We Belong Together" single (released a few months after Forever Changes, the last fruits of the classic Love lineup), an early version of "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This" entitled "Hummingbirds," and one bona fide album outtake, the tasty "Wonder People (I Do Wonder)," which was probably left off the record for being so unabashedly happy.
But as fun as these may be, the real gem remains the original record: the tattered, apocalyptic rave "A House Is Not A Motel," the fragile strains and ragged dissolution of "The Good Humor Man," the plaintive ballad "Old Man" (written and sung by guitarist Bryan Maclean), the surrealistic wordplay and irresistible punch of "The Daily Planet." Lee and his bandmates create indelible musical and lyrical images that burn their way into your conscious, whether it's the mysterious and haunting "The Red Telephone," where we find Lee "Sitting on a hillside / watching all the people die," or the epic closer "You Set The Scene," in which he triumphantly declares "This is the time and life that I am living / and I'll face each day with a smile / for the time that I've been given's such a little while / and the things that I must do consist of more than style" before giving way to the orchestra's celestial crescendos.
The band dissolved soon after the making of Forever Changes, though Lee continued making music under the name Love until his incarceration in the mid '90s for illegal possession of a firearm. Some critics have mused that the reason Love isn't remembered with as much fondness as we afford many other of the great psychedelic bands is that Lee didn't die young, as he often supposed he would. Other legends of the time, such as Lee's good friend Jimi Hendrix, passed on, leaving us with the imagined thoughts of "what would it have been like if he had survived and continued making great music?" In Lee's case, here was someone who survived past his creative peak, and whose largely forgettable post-peak output has tainted his critical reputation.
But this is the beauty of all recorded music. However out-of-shape Lee's mind might be in today, back in 1967 he was truly on to something remarkable, and his well-stoned but perfectly attuned bandmates were thankfully up to the task. The record is here for us all to revel in, and even after hundreds of listens, it remains one of the most rewarding experiences of the psychedelic rock era.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.