FOREVER CHANGES — An interpretation of the words and music of LOVE
Drust IV

Alone Again Or

Written by Bryan Maclean — the showbiz end of the creative structure — but arranged and mixed by Arthur Lee, Bryan’s main vocal is mixed out and we hear Arthur’s harmony track belting out the lyrics. Twelve String guitars & Mariachi trumpets locate it in an exotic, fictional, latin, New World habitat. The hovering, sweeping string section lends an emotive resonance; the vocal enswathed in a lush, supportive cradle of ethereal sound. It is at once strange and beautiful, the piece is infused with an eerie texture that will pervade the whole album. The drums and bass drive the rhythm along at an anxious pace, compounding the unreal rush of aural wonder that touches the sublime in emotive pull.

The lyrics prosaically speak of a certain someone with whom the author anticipates being alone; but is there a note of caution also, since this person is capable of being “in love with almost everyone” and embraces the idea that “people are the greatest fun” thus eschewing the solitary life? The author remains sceptical of universal love, peace and togetherness, these lines are pure banality, scribbled at the urge of a whim, and the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Yet there is a nagging preoccupation with the words since they are so heartfelt delivered — nothing can be taken at face value, indeed it is probable that there is a hidden code of contradictory meaning beneath the text; an inverted sense of values in a concealed inner world. This leitmotif or signifier continueth throughout the collection of canticle.

A House is Not a Motel

Frenetically strummed acoustic guitar marks the stamp and gallop of this song. Wildly insane, fuzzed out guitar by the genius, Johnny Echols, punctuates the breaks and forms the escape route for the outro. Played by determined and desperate people, in tune with alien nature of existence (they had developed a taste for Horse) where the colours of life are painted in formidably surreal tones; here even the warts are beautiful. Most of the band had been sidelined early on in the construction of the album, being deemed not fit for purpose because of their accumulated addiction. Session men (at one time Neil Young had been engaged as Producer) had begun the process of laying down the backing for some of the tracks. Somehow, Arthur called his cohort to account and gave them a ‘make or break’ ultimatum; emotional & tired, they summoned their last tangible reserves of uncontaminated creativity and stepped forward, crying, cold and bickering, into the studio. 

The content transforms Arthur into a benign Norman Bates. His house is not ‘The Motel’ but it is in Hollywood, in a Hitchcockian sense, “Where the light shines dim all around you”. Pessimistic, you can detect the radioactive glow in the half-life of the music, both disturbing and compelling but you don’t know why. Arthur sings the death knell for the planet as he hears someone calling his name — we all hear someone calling our name. The dim light then fades altogether leaving only the fundamental amalgams — water, blood, mud — stirred into a broth of future soup as our history is recorded in technicolor to be screened later as entertainment.

A mantel is an altar, sensations are worshiped — to touch, to smell, to feel, “To know where you are, yeah!” We are urged to celebrate the “confusions … blood-transfusions”. No answers are revealed, more secrets are hinted at; we manage merely a glimpse into Arthur’s inner sanctum through the holes and inconsistencies of daily life. This is poetry where difficult concepts are couched in ordinary, every-day routines, where the prosaic is itself cloaked in mystery — obscurity. The style approaches a manic ‘stream of consciousness’ that intrigues, beguiles and seduces. It reminds us to articulate despair through ritual and reveals some of the principles behind this necessary process.

Andmoreagain

Is not Ann Morgan, former screen actress, but then again it could be. It is a song about a fixation of love; love that is repetitious, unalterable, telepathic and timeless. Our inability to alter our own destiny underlines the dark side of love which remains obdurate to the end. Free will is an unproven hypothesis, love is an eternal duality. On planet Earth, we tend to fool ourselves with desire and materialism. This can help to mitigate the fear of death and the hurt when things go wrong and we are “lost in confusions”. It’s not that you should consider it wrong or right — just accept that this is what is; the experience repeats, for good or ill, “then you feel your heart beating…” The music is complex, Baroque, with harpsichord, strings and drum — beautiful, haunting, uplifting and chilling simultaneously. Plucked, picked, battered and slammed acoustic guitars form its foundation, from where the angst is born. Remember, these are desperate people, but capable of exquisite texture.

The Daily Planet

Revolving, inevitable tedium of life is described, where we “start the day the same old way”. Nothing Changes, yet the sub-text reveals an intricate range of emotion which promotes a subliminal core of hope, exultation and transcendence. “The Iceman’s ice is melting” is a neat image of time running — out; the imperative is to celebrate it now, before it has gone — yes, even the banal and trivial, for the patterns are sacred. Yes, I know its so humdrum and “oh so repetitious” but Arthur is searching for something beyond mere description. He is attempting to authenticate the abstract, validate our folly, accommodate our ignorance. There is an acknowledgement of a permanent spiritual meaning behind the very ordinary details of human existence. A magic unreality is present (like the phenomenon created by repeating a word until its meaning evaporates to be replaced by the strange sound it makes — as if you’ve heard for the first time in your life). The unreality of reality filters through the song by means of structure and phrasing. The words may seem devoid of meaning in an orthodox sense, but their cumulative effect is one of great power, confidence and resolve. The hum of chaos is ordinary but also extraordinary; meaning washes over you in waves, the daily chores of life in LA or the universal human experience interrogated and elevated.

Thematically, Arthur is concerned with the possibility of reincarnation, the meaning of free will and the observable, recurring patterns of our daily struggle. Armageddon, the arms industry, vacuous, plastic Nancy buys toys for her children, waiting on the war. As the song progresses, we are left with the overwhelming impression that Free Will is dead, we cannot alter our own destiny, physical features are distorted into a surrealist painting, ” I can see you, with no hands/face .… look we’re going round and round”. Everyone appears to be locked into their own unalterable time sequence which seems to nullify any kind of endeavour. However, this can be transcended by a complete surrender to and acceptance of the inconsistency, ambiguity and contradiction inherent in every experience. We come into this world with nothing, expecting nothing therefore there is nothing that can be taken from us by our experience on this planet. Those who bow to Mammon to pursue personal wealth at the expense of every other consideration, inevitably lose that part of their nature that looks at the world with the shining eyes of wonder and innocence. Arthur is saying that we can avoid this corruption by retaining our sense of naive curiosity. Viva Brevis Ars Longa.

The sliding acoustic riff is broken up with electric guitar chops and the ever present rolling toms/insistent snare of Michael Stuart. The structure is complex since it is essentially two songs rendered as to one with slower, empty acoustic folk passages interlaced with those hovering strings courtesy of David Angel. Played with a crackling, fiery determination, it is a masterpiece of evolving and flowing technique.

Old Man

The second of Bryan Maclean’s offerings on ‘Forever Changes’ is my favourite song, apparently written for and about Arthur Lee, who is the fine and wise old man of the title (though this may be apocryphal). Shamanistic talismans, symbols are bequeathed in the ritual of song, a “tiny, ivory ball” an “old, brown leather book” the title of which we remain ignorant of; all are handed to the fresh-faced, buoyant acolyte Maclean by the world-weary/word-weary wise high priest of the verbal icon — Mr. Lee. 

The music is complex in structure yet glides over one effortlessly, aided by delicately graceful strings and harpsichord. Vocal delivery is sincere, plangent, startlingly honest — almost melancholic. This is a subtle blend of voice and instruments that hovers in the rarified atmosphere of timelessness. The acoustic guitar picking is exemplary (presumably performed by Maclean himself) the bass & drums lend tactful, discrete, delicate figurines to the piece which enhances its charm. This is a triumphant crowning glory of a song that can deeply affect you if you suspend disbelief and allow yourself to be drawn into the enigmatic and captivating world of Love. 

The Red Telephone

Freedom analysed then reduced to parody. In it, Arthur deals with magic and numbers, deja-vu, half remembered fragments, the fine dust of repetitive ennui. “Sometimes my life is so eeirie” sings Mr Lee who is always detached and alienated from his environment — out of time yet governed by it and unable to influence the pattern. There is the proposition that he always feels alone, even with his woman, thus providing the ultimate existential realisation that through it all — our conceited artifice of grand achievements — we remain totally isolated in a hostile and implacable universe. We continue however, to be involved in the repeating, ineluctable folly of living on this planet. The way out of this folly? Do as Arthur do and gaze in divine contemplation at the objects/events around you because there is no God but the one you invent, lost in solemn abstraction. When we strip away the illusion and conceit, there is a knowledge that the world is uninhabitable — full of contradiction. Having experienced once … twice, you enjoy, adjust, reflect, doubt then transcend to the fourth … fifth … and is the sixth to fix? Not merely junkie terminology but also an abstract to denote permanence and order. If this time round existence could be pinned down, settled, secure — then maybe we could be fulfilled, come to understand, surrender to it and transcend. But then, maybe this is the only thing you can be sure of, that “everything that lives has gotta die” — Forever is continually changing.

Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale

Check the title and ask yourself why. A description of the mechanics of everyday life in a particular location during a particular time. “Here, the music is so loud…they always play my song”. The continuity of strange coincidence, a self-reflexive moment of epiphany as Arthur sees himself within the transient, empty, valueless merry-go-round of performance, entertainment deification — shallow emptiness. The Mexican feel of the acoustics strumming hard with the jazz/latino major seventh chords; the desperate, earnest hopelessness of the vocal delivery hints at the previous existence of this song as Jungian dreamscape. Because Arthur’s in it and sees through it, this validates the musician and the necessity of composition even if no one had ever heard it but the author.

This is the scene that is happening now and “If you think it obsolete … then go back across the street”. The scene is fluid, retro, contradictory, arbitrary, indefinable. The song has People/Location/Times coalescing to serve up a slice of existence for the listener in order to sample the variety of textures, smells, colours. An apparently banal situation is transformed through the power of the song into sublime poetry. Like Vermeer, Arthur has the ability to transubstantiate — to locate the profound in the prosaic details of survival.

That’s not all, the intensely personal subjective verbal references, as always, tend to obscure rather than elucidate. As Arthur is meister wordsmith, he uses rhyme and rhythm to delight and tease. The absent last word of each verse is used to begin the following verse. Traces of meaning shine through the vocal delivery rather than the syntax. It’s an up-beat, celebratory number, re-living a time of innocence and perceived magic but cut through with an all knowing, world weary perspective. The lines that end with repeats of “street” and “grey” are delivered with an angst ridden flourish. This is the key to the song; at face value, it may seem like a straightforward description of an idyllic time and place, but there is an underlying anger and dissatisfaction — would you rather “go paint everybody grey?” Grey is a colour Arthur mentions a lot, a symbol of conformity, bland, featureless, negating the individual. The colour of futility.

Live and Let Live

Initially, this song seems as plain as the nose on your face, but for me it is one of the hardest of the Forever Changes collection to unravel. This time the net is cast farther out than before (or does he retreat within to a stranger code?) Metaphor is stretched to the incomprehensible, snot caked into crystal against pants? Is this meant to be sexual, spiritual or is it merely doggerel? Taking his pistol to a Bluebird is not something to boast about though Arthur thinks himself to once have been an Indian and you were on his land. What are we to make of this. He was on LSD 24/7 at the time, so no wonder it’s strange.

The story’s ending? You should know it, it’s the story of life and it keeps repeating and if you don’t know it, I’ll tell you, it goes like this, “And end, end, end, end, end, end, end, end … and”. Get it?
Now here’s the part I have trouble with. For years I had thought that Arthur sings: “You made my soul ascend” having concocted my own phonetic interpretation. On reading the lyrics, I see that it actually is: “You made my soul a cell”. Oh dear! I had been assuming transcendence when the opposite is the case. This is the other side of love that imposes constraint. The theme of reincarnation reappears in verse two with “artillery” used as smutty euphemism echoing the “pistol” reference in verse one. Was Arthur Sioux or Comanche when he saw someone trespass on his land? 

The astonishing fuzzed out staccato guitar at the end is a hard one to duplicate and an enduring testimony to Johnny Echols talent; perhaps his finest moment before commencing as a Doughnut stand robber. There’s something euphoric, dangerous and disturbing about the arrangement of the outro as it careers out of control in a sub Bo-Diddley amphetamine cacophony that mesmerises the listener. It all seems to be falling apart but is ultimately held together by Echols excellent, stuttering guitar. A furious tumult of battering acoustic guitar chords jump chaotically out of the speakers, the drumming becomes tom-tom laden, and manically unhinged, Forsi’s muffled bass rushes pell-mell into the spree, desperately trying to catch up while the whole Jackson Pollock canvas is bespattered by the rasping machine-gun bursts of Echols’ eccentric lead guitar. Altogether, a stunning piece, Love at their finest. 

The Good Humor Man, He Sees Everything Like This

“Hummingbirds … Merry-go-rounds … Summertime”. This is the innocent side of the Sixties defined, wish fulfillment perhaps, but Arthur has no particular axe to grind. Feel good in an uncorrupted fairy tale world. The music is paradoxically melancholic and spooky in typical Love fashion. It is morning, we are happy, young, but Arthur acknowledges the inevitable decay, you can hear it in the mood of the piece. It is ostensibly light, trite, one-dimensional but that stuttering trumpet riff … those hovering strings again — the feeling is sombre and eldritch.

Bummer in the Summer

The clue is in the last verse, a precis. “All alone — Didn’t have a home — Thought of where I was and knew where I was supposed to be — Everyone I saw was just another part of me”. Lunatic egotist or gifted visionary? This could be the classic dilemma of the arrogance of the outsider, disdaining and denying inauthentic experience. Arthur is dis-located (Camus), estranged (Sarte), alienated (Kierkegaard) yet he has managed to submerge himself in the totality of humanity, he can see himself in everyone; a vindication of the true creator? So that slap on the face he was about to deliver doesn’t happen. The sneer in the vocals says enough. “No-one’s got no papers on you” so just do what you want to do, a song does not negate, is not doctrinaire and the theme of dislocation repeats throughout Lee’s lyric but we must assume that the plumbing job never worked out.

You Set the Scene

This song is probably the most all encompassing on the album and serves as a recap of what went before; this time more is revealed. This is again two songs melded into one. The first part has syntax that codifies the elemental logic underpinning human interaction couched in subjective references. What’s that Private doing in Arthur’s boat “wearing pins instead of medals on his coat”? A pre-Punk type protest against militarism? Could the chicken in his nest infer a commitment to livestock welfare, she won’t lay until you’ve “given her your best” a sexual allegory perhaps? “At her request she asks for nothing, she gets nothing in return” Double negatives do not a positive make. What is the intention behind this inscrutable string of non-sequiturs? Fucked if I know. But it sure sound good.

The next verse outlines the tendency for self-deception in the human psyche. We can be happy if we think we are happy then, as the verse progresses, pessimism replaces buoyancy and things become more complex; people will want to screw you, either up or down, either way, the consequence is not good, they’re ‘wearing frowns”.

“The things that I must do consist of more than style”, here there is an acknowledgement of spiritual necessity nevertheless, the detail of ritual is important: verbal icons, symbols, colours, sensations. The pivotal theme of rebirth is worked over again and again, refining, defining different ways of authenticating the experience. If you should find it all strange, then “you should be the first to want to make the change”. Break the pattern, life’s not a game, hope lies in seeing “…your picture, it’s in the same old frame, we meet again, I wanna love you but, oh, oh, oh, oh”. Arthur compares disparate themes and concludes that the firmament is not fixed. 

Part two is the denouement of the whole album where Arthur brings together all the preceding strands and illuminates the imperative of his concerns: Life, Death, Regeneration. Time’s poisonous hold on the mind should be shattered, because there will still be enough to “start all over”. The repetition of “This is the time, time, time, time, time … time” hints at reincarnation and the many chances we have to experience gestalt, the nowness of now. This is an impossibility for most of us, ‘Now’ is merely a funnel through which we are constantly pouring the future into the past. Unfettering the tenacious grip of time is a difficult proposition; like an ever flowing stream, it bears its spawn away. “This is the only thing that I am sure of, and that’s all that lives is gonna die/And there’ll always be some people here to wonder why”. There will be time to grow accustomed to this experience, adjust, re-interpret, speculate, “put yourself on”. 

There is no rationale to the process of existence. Each individual is unique and defies classification — just look at the variety of human types; as Kierkegaard says “Put me in a system and you negate me — I am not just a mathematical symbol — I AM!” This echoes the theme found in Patrick McGoohan’s ‘The Prisoner’ — “I am not a number, I am a free man!” Linked to this proud defiance of classification Arthur also touches on the acceptance of the eternal ‘Nothingness’ of existence, where the real becomes unreal, “Everything I see needs rearranging”. Yet still the unreality sweeps across us, we perceive the solid truth of the universe and can bond with all matter without understanding why. In truth, we are all part of everything that ever was and will be part of everything that ever will be. Keats, just before he died, said in a letter to Browne: “I feel as if I have died already and am now living a posthumous existence”. So must it have been for the young Arthur Lee who, at the age of twenty-six, felt so convinced of his imminent exit from life, projected himself into that circumstance and wrote as though from the grave; a journal of his perceptions of life through death. The duality and contradictory nature of his themes, the double negatives which abound in his lyrics give a natural balance and totality to his propositions — a profound achievement for someone who was ostensibly writing ‘Pop’ lyrics. Arthur communicates his subjective thoughts with a unique and surprising vocabulary, sometimes bitter, ascerbic, pouting, sullen, vituperative, satirical, sometimes rapturous, transcendent, lush and sweet.

Is there a God? For Arthur often would mention the name, but never define it. Well … you would have to be either incredibly intelligent or very stupid to attempt to answer that question: “This is the time in life that I am living, and I’ll face each day with a smile”.