caravan70's Full Review: Forever Changes [Remaster] by Love
Love has never been particularly underrated or ignored; it's just that the fond recollections aren't there for a lot of people. They were largely a club band, and although they were a Los Angeles institution from their formation in 1965 until the beginning of the 70's, they never achieved the recognition that goes along with stadium shows and creates a demand for reunion tours, re-releases and (thank God) appearances in casinos. The lyrical invention and musical fertility they brought to a scene that is today mistakenly identified by many only with the San Francisco bands cannot be overstated. From their first self-titled release, which has more in common with the Standells than with the Jefferson Airplane, to Four Sail, which although a letdown given what had come before had gems like "Your Mind and We Belong Together" to recommend it, Love ignored the concept of genre and whirled styles together in a blender. Forever Changes, released in 1968, is their supreme achievement and one of the most beautiful and provocative albums in rock history.
Let's take this from the perspective of someone who's just bought the album on the first day of release (throwing gold label Elektra on turntable):
From the opening strings (yes, strings) of "Alone Again Or" we know we're listening to something that's strangely different. Da Capo foreshadowed this with "Que Vida?," but this isn't the punk of "Seven and Seven Is." More like "Orange Skies" or "She Comes In Colors," maybe. But a bit different… this music is lush. It breathes and expands, and fills the space around us.
We're listening to "A House is Not a Motel," which we hear next:
By the time that I'm through singing
The bells from the school, the walls will be ringing
More confusion, blood transfusions
The news today will be the movies of tomorrow
And the water turns to blood
And if you don't think so, turn on your tub…
The band has acquired a sensibility unlike any expressed on the first two albums, and it's heightened by a wailing John Echols solo that closes the song.
"Andmoreagain" is also lush, and it's beautiful, but we're happy to get to "The Daily Planet," which combines an almost rollicking Lovin' Spoonful sensation with the usual happily demented Arthur Lee lyrics. The diversity that's one of the most amazing characteristics of this album doesn't allow that sensation much longevity, though: we're into "Old Man," (not to be confused with the Neil Young hit from Harvest), which even though one of the weaker tracks on the album - it suffers from a certain maudlin quality - is redeemed by its quiet instrumental beauty.
"The Red Telephone," which closes out the first side, is arguably the finest track on the album. It's an antiwar piece that quietly expresses outrage:
Sitting on a hillside
Watching all the people die…
Or
Life goes on here
Day after day -
I don't know if I'm living or if I'm
Supposed to be…
And, most importantly, in the final refrain:
They're locking them up today
They're throwing away the key
I wonder who it will be tomorrow,
You or me?
Brilliant… and we have to flip the album. Happy strains come from the speakers as we try to figure out what the hell the band meant by entitling the first track we hear "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale"; we finally give up and enjoy the song. There's a mariachi feel here, and a sense of fun… "Everybody play…"
But when we get to "Live and Let Live," we're greeted with:
Well, the snot has caked against my pants
It has turned into crystal
There's a bluebird sitting on the fence…
Another incredibly powerful song awaits. As usual with these tracks, you've got the seemingly schizophrenic lyrics of Lee laid over a tight five-piece band with symphonic instrumentation, and the song is especially potent just after Lee tells us to "ask our leaders why": this is when you've got the most extended and focused Echols solo on the record that doesn't close out a song. "Served my time, served it well/made my soul a cell" is the lead-in to the closing guitar bit which "kicks out the jams," as the MC5 would have it, and we're aware at this point in the album, if we haven't been before, that Lee's not just a punk singer any more; he's got something more valuable to tell us.
If "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This," which follows, is a wonderfully nostalgic and lushly scored piece of work, "Bummer in the Summer" has a bit more of an edge. It has a lot more in common with a song like "Seven and Seven Is" than it does with anything else on the album. It's most likely a filler piece, but it leads into the grand opus of the album, "You Set the Scene."
If this record can be described as a period piece, this song encapsulates the reasons why - it incorporates the musical themes and topical concerns of the recording in 6:49. The reality of the present is evoked:
There's a man who can't decide if he should fight for what his father thinks is right
There are people wearing crowns who'll screw you up but they would rather screw you down…
This is the "A Day in the Life" of this record. It goes through "changes that may seem strange" that lead up to the conclusion that
This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that's all that lives is gonna die
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello there'll be good-bye
There'll be times that you just put yourself on…
Not particularly novel stuff, perhaps, but through the strength of this music and the conviction of the band, there's "new wine in old bottles." "This is the time," we're told, and as this album ends in a chorus of strings and horns we're struck by the pure beauty and the strength of message a rock band can create.
1968 was a wonderful year for the release of important, creative rock, and this album may be its most significant product, despite Beggars' Banquet, Crown of Creation, Traffic's second album, the "White Album," and a number of others (allow me to exclude Astral Weeks, which transcends rock altogether). There's meaning to be found in these lyrics, but this music stands on its own: if Lee were merely mouthing gibberish, as he occasionally seems to be, this album would still be stunningly beautiful. It's one of the few records that leave you meditating in silence when the needle leaves the turntable.
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