Love. Okay, so this is an obscure lost classic although Forever Changes with its mariachi trumpets is better know — but it is a classic. One glance at Arthur Lee on the cover and you know you’ve got hold of something special. Arhtur’s in jail now on some kind of firearms charge and his life since Love has been well rough, but on that day, in those trousers, with that hair cut, Arthur looks like the coolest man for four hundred miles in any direction — and he knows it.
The album kicks off with Little Red Book, a Bacharach number. Love give it a twisted angry sound though. Arthur is f*cked up about that girl and it makes him mad.
My favourite track is ‘Message to Pretty’. It’s all minor and suspended chords but with a killer hook and the lyric runs:
‘I’ll go through life searching, trying to find the one, I go slip, slip, you go slip slip away
And I don’t need you to help me find my way, I can make it if I just don’t see your face.’
I know, Arthur, I know.