Love, "Revisited"

My belated tribute to Arthur Lee, who passed away the night of Thursday, August 3rd, '06.

"Revisited" is a compilation album, comprising material from their first 4 albums. I bought it to have some Love on LP and it's cheaper and more available than buying old copies of their albums.

It begins with the Burt Bacharach cover, 'My Little Red Book' from their first album. It sounds like 60s garage rock basically should - hyper, crunchy, driving. Lee sings and they make it sound like a snarly garage hit - it's got a pretty, heart-swelling Bacharach melody and his partner Hal David's bittersweet pop lyrics, but it's being pounded out by primitives.

Their pre-Hendrix cover of 'Hey Joe' from their first album is also on here - another fast, hard-driving garage thing. Not being a Hendrix fan anymore, I prefer this version. I like it better than the Byrds' version too. Like 'Little Red Book' it's pounded out, but it's so frenetic because it sounds like it's stopping and starting the whole time.

Also from self-titled album #1: 'Softly to Me', written by Brian MacLean (the other singer and songwriter in Love), is all textured by the two guitars and the rythym section all loping and bouncing; 'Signed D.C.' is a semi-acoustic ballad that sounds like it was recordeded in an echo chamber for atmosphere.

From album #2, "De Capo": '7 and 7 Is', another fast garage rocker of the 1st order played by speedy freaks; MacLean's 'Orange Skies' sung by Lee - cloying lyrics are saved by a good arrangement and production with a flute; 'She Comes in Colors' is another one with the flute and other mid-sixties production-arrangement innovations, but still sounds like it's played by a garage band, which is where "Da Capo" sits, in between garage punch and delicate arrangement.

Rounding out Side 1 is a single, 'Your Mind and We Belong Together' that's included in the bonus tracks of the "Forever Changes" cd, their 3rd album. Definately in the mode of their masterpiece "Forever Changes". Like a darker version of the Beach Boys' fragmented album "Smiley Smile", "Forever Changes" was a product of Southern California 1967 that was as structurally complex as "Sgt. Pepper's", but richer, and underappreciated.

Side 2 of "Revisited" kicks off with "Forever Changes'" opener, MacLean's 'Alone Again Or', sung by him and Lee simultaneously. Like much of that album, 'Alone Again' is beautifully arranged with acoustic and electric guitars, strings and mariachi horns. The song has a melancholy marshal quality, accentuated by the horns especially, like the last stand of an honorable Mexican general and his men, which is sort of how the whole melancholy album sounds; Lee and his men fighting a hopeless battle against the forces of insipidness.

"This is the time in life that I am living,
And I'll face each day with a smile.
For the time that I've been given's such a little while,
And the things that I must do consist of more than style.
There are places than I am going.

This is the only thing that I am sure of:
And that's all that lives is going to die;
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why,
And for every happy 'hello' there will be 'good-bye' -
There'll be time for you to put yourself on."

'You Set the Scene', "Forever Changes"

R.I.P.