Forever Changes

[Nick Halliwell]

He played a fairly small venue here (South-West England) 3-4 years ago. Love
had been a big influence on a lot of local bands even in the immediate
aftermath of punk when they were frankly forgotten in most of the rest of
the country until the early eighties when people like Aztec Camera and the
Pale Fountains were clearly drawing hugely on Love. In 1978, aged 14, I came
across a wonderful Elektra compilation called "Love Masters" - this was
basically around half of the tracks from each of the first three albums plus
then impossible to obtain single tracks such as "Number 14", "Laughing
Stock" and "Your Mind And We Belong Together". I still have a copy on vinyl
somewhere. 

When he played here I saw people I'd not come across for 20-25 years. Almost
every conversation beforehand seemed to start off with one person looking
dazedly at another, saying "Arthur Lee? THE Arthur Lee? Here? Pinch me..."
So the audience was in a trance and barely made a sound during the
performance. Poor Arthur couldn't figure it out: "hey, are you guys not
enjoying this? Boo us if you think we're shit but hell, make some noise!"
This was just Arthur and Baby Lemonade, not the full orchestral version he'd
taken out a year or so previously. I think he performed every song from FC
as well as most of "Da Capo" and a fair helping of the first album and a few
things from "Four Sail". 

I think FC is one of the most perfect albums ever made. In fact it's one of
those rare albums where you wouldn't change a note if you could. Of course,
there are many "classic" records whose imperfections are part of their
greatness but every note on FC is in its place, every song is perfectly
written, arranged and performed and it all melds together. Nor has its
perfection faded over time. I still think Bryan Maclean has never really had
the credit he deserves (he wrote "Alone Again Or" and "Old Man") and
Arthur's later output without the original band was sketchy, to put it
charitably. 

Anyway, I could write a whole book on FC but I see someone else already has
so I'd better shut up. 

Nick



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of John BAILEY
Sent: 28 May 2007 04:09
To: Dave Monroe; Pynchon List
Subject: RE: Forever Changes

Brilliant album, but the book sounds disappointing. Any idea what the
Pynchon ref is?

Lee came out here a few years ago on his Forever Changes tour, and the
album still held up live. Played a reasonably small venue, too. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of Dave Monroe
Sent: Monday, 28 May 2007 6:32 AM
To: Pynchon List
Subject: Forever Changes

Andrew Hultkrans: Forever Changes

After almost 40 years, Love's Forever Changes remains an album that is
widely regarded as one of the benchmarks of '60s psychedelic rock. Yet
the album's texture remains synonymous with mystery, uncertainty, and
chaos.

The album has influenced everyone from Julian Cope to The Damned to Neil
Young. Love's much-lauded, much-interpreted masterpiece, Forever
Changes, has once again been put under the critical microscope. This go
'round, though, the exposition is often excruciatingly
philosophical.Hultkrans' thesis is simple: Forever Changes' greatness
lay in the fact that vocalist Arthur Lee was a paranoid genius,
convinced he was going to die. He argues that Lee, a citizen of L.A.
at the height of the racially tense Summer of Love, lived a life of
isolation propelled by intense paranoia. Depression, drug use, and
social conflict are also suggested as possible causes for the
temperamental and ultimately fatal relationship between the members of
Love.

Overall, Hultkrans has penned an enjoyable, quick read about one of
rock's enduringly charming albums. However, he spends way too much time
exploring the motives and psyche of Arthur Lee and quoting outside
sources, such as Virginia Woolf and Thomas Pynchon. In return, there are
hardly any details about how this record was written and created, nor is
there much on the four other members of Love. In the end, the album
Forever Changes remains a brilliant psychedelic enigma, shrouded in a
veil of paranoid hallucinogenic isolation. Rob Levy

http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/5991/162/

Hultkrans, Andrew.  Forever Changes.  NY: Continuum, 2003.

http://www.continuumbooks.com/Books/detail.aspx?ReturnURL=/Series/defaul
t.aspx&CountryID=2&ImprintID=2&BookID=120395

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0603&msg=100219

Love, Forever Changes (1967)

http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=76717

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