Forever Changes (1967)

Artist: Love
Release Year: 1967

Rating: 10/10

Track Listing: 1) Alone Again Or; 2) A House Is Not a Motel; 3) Andmoreagain; 4) The Daily Planet; 5) Old Man; 6) The Red Telephone; 7) Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale; 8) Live and Let Live; 9) The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This; 10) Bummer in the Summer; 11) You Set the Scene.

Every so often, I’ll hear an album whose reputation, both artistic and historical, seems disproportionate to its actual content; yet, years later, I still find myself ensnared by its beauty and mystique.  Is this, then, a validation of that reputation that I’d formerly denied? 

This is the ultimate question that plagues me every time I listen to this album (and I’ve listened to it a lot).  What exactly was so revolutionary about this record?  What did it change?  What could it be said to have bowled over and reconstructed in the wake of other 1967 monoliths such as Piper, Sell Out, and Sgt. Pepper?  The orchestrated, folk-psychedelic music is not far removed from what The Pretty Things were doing on Emotions seven months before, and seven months is an eternity when talking about mid-Sixties musical developments.  Hell, even the most haunting baroque elements, such as those heard in “The Red Telephone”, were predicted by The Left Banke the previous year…so what gives?

I’m still not certain, but I’ll venture a guess that it has a lot to do with the album’s philosophy.  Each song paints a different surreal picture, most of them outwardly warm and serene, but always with a constant, nagging feeling that something is just…off.  When “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This” comes to lines about “little girls wearing pigtails in the morning”, why does it seem so ominous, almost as if these are kids about to be disintegrated in a nuclear blast a la “There Will Come Soft Rains”? 

Well, in short, it’s because they are.  Forever Changes is an album written primarily by a man who had grown disillusioned with the hippie movement and its lack of actual efficacy against the Order it so vocally denounced.  There were dark forces taking over the world: masters of war and avarice and deception and death – not only in Vietnam or the USSR, but right at home.  The doomsday clock was ticking ever closer to midnight, and Arthur Lee delivers the near-hallucinatory lyrics with all the despair of a man who sees what no one else can be bothered to see: absolute oblivion.

The songs bleed out with such a soft sadness, a palpable fatigue…and beneath, almost a sense of dread, if the singer can even be bothered to feel dread.  There is little extraversion or universal love here—never mind what the powerless protagonist says in those warmer moments, because those are presented in such an insular way as to seem almost dreamlike and willingly denialistic.  Go on and tell me you believe "Andmoreagain" is a real person, for instance!  Each song is a product of a jaded individual who has sequestered himself away from the masses, almost as if he has dispensed with the idea of human unity – though whether that is because he believes us naturally incapable, or because he sees existing power structures as insurmountable, really depends on the song.

And what of the songs?  They’re fantastic—all of them.  The first three are all first-rate baroque pop-rock, stylistically similar to the psychedelic hits of their time, but all with that eeriness and foreboding that keeps them from playing too nicely with others.  From the second: “And the water’s turned to blood, and if you don’t think so, go turn on your tub.”  The reality is right in front of us, yet no one bothers to observe for themselves—we’re all stuck in fantasy land.

There are moments when we seem to be reaching out to others: “Old Man” tenderly details the wisdom given by mentors, and “The Daily Planet” and “Live and Let Live” lament the isolation and violence, wishing for more connection, even in spite of the infamous “snot has caked against my pants” line in the latter—maybe that’s the true groundbreaking element here!

In the end, though, the enigmatic “You Set the Scene” sees Lee turning away from society and resolving, with equal parts triumph and desperation, to live his own life as he pleases, making the most of whatever time he does have – ironically, in the same solipsistic manner that probably enables the greedy and malevolent to ravage that society in the first place.  But, if doom truly is upon us already, then I say he’s well within his rights.

I still don't know whether to rate this album a perfect ten or not, since a few passages are a little monotonous to me, but what would I have them add?  I still love everything on here.  Even if the individual songs don't always jump out at me the way they would on a Beatles or Floyd album, the holistic product is much more than the sum of its parts.  Listening to this album is like walking into a cathedral of despair and leaving feeling just a tiny better about things, all because someone finally decided to ditch all the stupid idealism and level with you for once...and that's more valuable than ever these days.