Alone Again Or - Love
We're at the mellow end of the week now, so what better for us than a dose of Love?
Love were an LA band that was formed when Arthur Lee met Bryan MacLean, who co-incidentally was Maria McKee's (see last two posts) half brother. MacLean joined Lee's band, Grass Roots, which subsequently changed its name to Love, having discovered the existence of another Grass Roots, also in LA.
Grass Roots recorded 10 successful albums and over double that number Hot 100 hundred hit entries but few can remember them today. The classic line-up of Love, on the other hand, recorded only three albums including the legendary "Forever Changes" which is on most people's list of top 100 LP's ever and from which this is the opening track, written by MacLean with the musing vocals shared by him and a harmonising Lee:
"Yeah, said it's all right I won't forget all the times I've waited patiently for you and you'll do just what you choose to do and I will be alone again tonight my dear"
This is more like a short story by Roberto Bolano than a piece of LA rock from 1967. Perhaps it's just as well that the epicentre of the song (beginning exactly 1 minute 40 seconds in on a track that lasts 3 minutes 20) is the bit that lifts the song from "pretty good" to one of the best album openers of all time. The Spanish guitar and Mexican trumpet lines make us think we're on the border, but what border? The border between banality and imagination? The border between the sixties and now? The border between Trump and love? Have no fear, the heroic strings assert the essential goodness of humanity, as do the final uplifting words:
"Yeah, I heard a funny thing somebody said to me you know that I could be in love with almost everyone I think that people are the greatest fun and I will be alone again tonight my dear."
I'll go along with that, I think people are the greatest fun too. As is this song.