Forever Changes

Love

album cover

The Underside of the Summer of Love

There's the official historical record of the Summer of Love, available in countless documentaries. And then there's the alternative idea L.A.-based songwriters Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean proffer on Forever Changes—this one trades rampant hippie idealism for paranoia, portrays drug use as both illuminating and pathetic ("Live and Let Live" opens with an addict's realization, "Oh, the snot has caked against my pants"), and suggests that widespread mayhem, if not full societal breakdown, is right around the corner.

Somehow this cycle, written during an extended drug binge in a Hollywood mansion where Bela Lugosi once lived, expresses these dark thoughts without becoming totally morose. Its apocalyptic scenarios come wrapped in lush strings, skittering harpsichords, and whimsical extended melodies. Years later, Lee recalled that when Love was working on these songs, he was convinced these words would be his last. That perhaps explains why Forever Changes feels so radical, it was made under a "nothing left to lose" cloud. At the same time, the gentlemen of Love still valued song structure: MacLean, who wrote the gorgeous opening track "Alone Again Or," once said that his background in musical theater impacted his mercurial partner Lee: "What you have (in Love) is a black guy from L.A. Writing show tunes." But that's not all he (or Love) wrote: This album offers top-flight blues, folk-rock trippier than that of the Byrds, classic rock balladry, orchestral pop, and on and on.

It's hard to believe that such a diverse array of caustic, lavishly arranged, and often opaque songs grew out of the cultural moment of 1967. Love is profoundly out of step with the times, a brave (some would say necessary) counterpunch to the prevailing peace/love ethos. Not surprisingly, Forever Changes didn't fare well commercially. But over the years, it has become almost a sacred text. Inside these songs are ideas about guitar soloing that Lee's friend Jimi Hendrix rode into the stratosphere; hints of the mysticism and transcendence that became the calling card of the Doors; and the seeds of goth, orchestral pop, and other subgenres. Few records of the era cast such a wide (and still lengthening) shadow.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1967, Elektra
Key Tracks: "The Red Telephone," "A House Is Not a Motel," "Alone Again Or."
Catalog Choice: Da Capo.
Next Stop: The Doors: The Doors
After That: Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs.
Book Pages: 457–458