Forever Changes by Love
by Lana Fleischli
“... and I will be alone again tonight my dear…” Classic lyrics from “Alone Again Or” by The Damned, right? That’s what I thought. I am embarrassed that as a person with a vast knowledge of music, I didn’t know that a very well-known song was not by the band I thought it was.
Forever Changes by Love came out in 1967 with songs that perfectly capture the time it was created in. From the musicality, to the lyrics, it gives the modern day listener (me for example), a look into the evolution of music at that time.
Love is a rock band, but we all know that rock n roll pulls from a wide variety of music like folk, blues, and jazz. In Love’s music, you can hear all of the different influences from the strings that sound more orchestral, to the drums which have a blues-y rhythm, to the picking guitar and harmonies for some folky-poppy vibes.
The lyrics are about love (fitting right?), but not in the way we often hear it nowadays where the singer is heartsick or insanely enamored. The song “Andmoreagain” is a song about a girl. Arthur Lee sings about her eyes and it’s just about this elusive girl named “Andmoreagain.”
“A House Is Not A Motel” gives a deeper meaning into what “home” means. A Pitchfork article about Forever Changes discusses how the album as a whole is about Los Angeles at the time, and I feel like that really comes through in this song specifically because of the contrast in the music and what the song is about. In “A House Is Not A Motel” Lee sings about this idea of being stable in where you are, like how you should be in your home, but people feel lost. Maybe it’s like being lost in the city of Los Angeles where life might’ve been getting a little crazy. Also, his tone of very different in this song than most of the others. Generally, he sings in a higher octave, but here, he sings deeper, and his voice sounds pained.
The idea of loss and loneliness shines through in “Alone Again Or” which is about how someone is always wrapped up in other people that they are actually the loneliest ones, which is a very relatable idea. I personally love this song. Like I said, it’s a classic! However, I thought it was by The Damned until I learned about Love. Love is not mainstream, but they knew what their sound was-- what music they wanted to make. People know about Love, but I wonder why it wasn’t as known, especially because it was one of the first racially diverse rock bands in the US, which I feel like is something that would get a lot of attention, but again, it was the ‘60’s and this was only released two years after the Civil Rights Act was passed.
I hate to say it, but when I first heard Love, I just assumed it was an all-white cis-male band. They were all cis men, but definetly not all white. I assumed that based on when it came out because most rock music we know from the ‘60’s was all white men. The thing is that Love’s music is beautiful and captures the music of the 1960’s, so why haven’t I heard about it until earlier this year? Rock music history lacks in portraying all of the rock music that we love. “Alone Again Or” is a classic, but the one that I knew first was the one sung by a white man. I’m definitely not hating on The Damned because they are great, and I love that cover, but the original version is incredible and people should know the original version, or else they are just missing out.