Forever Changes

33⅓ Main Series #2

by Andrew Hultkrans

Conceived as the last testament of a charismatic recluse who believed
he was about to die, 'Forever Changes' is one of the defining albums of
an era. Here, Andrew Hultkrans explores the myriad depths of this
bizarre and brilliant record. Charting bohemian Los Angeles' descent
into chaos at the end of the '60s, he teases out the literary and
mystical influences behind Arthur Lee's lyrics, and argues that Lee
was both inspired and burdened by a powerful prophetic urge.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, History

127 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 17, 2003

Reviews

[Antonomasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

An album with the strange familiarity of music fallen asleep to dozens of times, but when, or where, with who (or none) I cannot remember. And in the past couple of weeks in appropriately semi-mystical fashion I've been pointed back toward this record on seeing that three otherwise unconnected friends - who usually listen to little pre-1990 - have been playing this on Spotify.

I listened intently on repeat to 'Alone Again Or' after (re?) discovering it in 2009 in the uniquely unlikely source of a piece of Severus Snape fanfiction. [Not something I've ever been in the habit of reading except for one brief phase. Srsly man.] Of the other songs I know the sound but not all the lyrics, perhaps never having listened through headphones. The psychedelic guitars meander and roll outside time and space, transporting me to a mood not unlike The Stone Roses eponymous effort. But wherever Forever Changes stirs from the trip to look out of the window into the troubled political world it feels jaded fear and slips it under your skin so subtly you can't be sure it wasn't there before, mingled as it is with the otherworldly comfort of the melodies. Brown and Squires would stick their heads out, yelling in cheek and anger to encourage the (Poll Tax) rioters, and with considerably less lyrical and sonic richness than Arthur Lee & co.

Both albums have on the surface a sense of being out of time, but contain some songs suffused with the political and social mood of their eras. And it's the west coast Sixties going sour which this book is about, Arthur Lee's reclusion foreshadowing the more widespread retreats that would follow the Manson murders and Altamont. Here I confess to parochialism: I'd love to hear more about the late sixties in Britain and Europe but as far as the USA goes, I'm still all Tom Wolfed and Hunter Thompsoned out from my late teens and early twenties; more than a page on the dodgy realities of the Haight Ashbury dream and I'm snoozing like a hippie chick who's been spiked. At least, though, we get a couple of pages on Performance*

The tricky thing about 33 1/3 books seems, as a British reader, that so many of them are by American music journalists with whom we don't have any existing rapport. It's not as easy to warm to their personal relationship with the music as it would be with someone who you've read on and off since NME and Melody Maker at 14. But Hultkrans manages it; he mentions identification with the music and the artists but not at great length, and perhaps because of the particular themes of depression and eccentric retreat from the world, ones I know a little from myself, but more so from more definitively introverted friends and lovers, I found it easy to feel at home.

His ten-page digression tenuously relating the album to the gnostic gospels - perhaps a personal interest - I could have done without, however. He admits that he can't be sure Lee read them, and as a previous reviewer also stated, the linked themes are just as easily found in Buddhism and occultism which were more surely in vogue at the time.

And I am grateful for the author's copious quotes from On Illness by Virginia Woolf and from A rebours which point me back to texts I mean to read and finish.

* You can watch it here. After having it on my list for over 15 years, I saw it this spring and the ensuing years had not been kind. Rather than a masterpiece of late-sixties decadence, in 2012 it can look like a Guy Ritchie parody starring Noel Fielding. (And if you'd ever thought Fielding was original, you won't after seeing Performance)

[Kitap · Rating 2 out of 5]

At times insightful, while at other times pretentious, this slim volume attempts an exegesis of the 1967 Love masterpiece in terms of its historical and spiritual context. Bleaker and far more inventive (musically and lyrically) than most of its psychedelic peers, Forever Changes is a prophetic work, according to the author, because it described the seeds of destruction present in the naivete of the flower power movement. The author's weakest moments, to me, come when he tries to connect the album to Gnosticism, a subject about which he does not seem to know much. (Perhaps his connections would have been more successful had he related the album to the perennial philosophy in more general terms, since many of the ideas he ascribes to Gnosticism could also just as easily be found in Hinduism and Buddhism.) Despite the author's pretensions, the book is a well-written, thought-provoking skeleton key to one of the most interesting rock albums ever recorded. (What we really need is for Julian Cope to write a guide to this album...)

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

[I have decided to read all the 33⅓ books because a) i'm a sicko, and b) whilst they are often awful, they are rarely middling, and I just want to feel something. Also, I'm gonna review the albums as I go, cos if these guys can get up their arse about music, so can I.]

The book: ⭐⭐
I think a fundamental problem with a lot of these books is in the way they are sold (or at least the way I think they are sold) as definitively about the record itself, when they often aren't actually that (even though sometimes they are!). If this book was subtitled 'How Forever Changes predicted the dark side of the Summer of Love' (but obvs something more catchy than that) then this book wouldn't be quite as bad, because at least you'd know what your getting into. It's an okay version of that book, but focuses far too much on the lyrics of the album and makes some wild leaps when considering Arthur Lee's intentions to go off on some dull tangents about things that clearly preoccupy the author more than they did the strung-out, paranoid songwriter. My favourite moment on this album is on 'Maybe the People Would be the Times' when Lee wordlessly mimics a brass line, which sums up how little I care for most of the lyrics on here, and this book's (sort of) deep dive into the 'meaning' behind this stuff did nothing to really change that.
At least the author is mostly absent in this one, but I still would rather have read more about how the record was made.

The album: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The book touches on Forever Changes otherworldy production in a few brief sentences, which is crazy to me because for I think this album is classic because of how it sounds, not the (mostly) inane nonsense rhyming schemes of the lyrics. The record feels timeless because it twists the tropes of psychedelia and folk into something purer, deeper, music that sounds fractured at first, but is actually oceanic in its depth. This book is right that it takes a few listens to click, but when it does almost every track on the album feels like a crossword filled out with all the wrong letters that still makes perfect sense [this sentence is my audition for writing one of these bullshit books]. I wanted to read about how the record was produced, about how the weird string and horn arrangements came to be, about the rumours that Neil Young was involved, basically about all the stuff that you can find in a five minute Google that is infinitely more interesting than the fact Arthur Lee went to see a play about the Marquis de Sade, which this book can't get over.

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really tedious and comes across more like a research paper than an insightful look at the album. As ridiculous as it is to say, there's simply not enough about the actual album, the music, the recording in this book. There's over-examination of the lyrics which results in a ton of quotes and attempts to draw connections to other literary, religious and existentialist works and a lot of grasping at straws. And there's also a good bit of context-setting, trying to establish the setting of the 60s and what was happening at the time, which is all well and good, but there's just not enough information about the album itself.
After having read the Afghan Whigs' "Gentlemen" 33 1/3 book, there's a dramatic difference in how engaging these books are. The Whigs' book was a page turner I couldn't put down. I find myself skipping whole paragraphs in this "Forever Changes" book. A shame, because it's a brilliant album and it deserves a stronger volume in this series.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the 60's got weird Love's "Forever Changes" was the soundtrack recording of that time. Beautifully baroque pop songs that haven't been touched since then. Often talked about but never mastered. Arthur Lee and the guys really made a masterpiece and Andrew Hultkrans nails the album's' importance and what it means in the 21st Century.

I also enjoy Hultkran's work in Bookforum Magazine. He's a good writer and this is a really good slice of 'pop' history as well as making you want to check this record out. Great album and really good book.

[Khris Sellin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to my son Frank for turning me on to this series of books. There are 179 little gems of them in the 33-1/3 series. Great for any music buff.

[Alan]

As one of the earliest of the 33-1/3 series, this book didn't set the template for the following books, which is good. It's an overly general meditation on that point in the sixties that Forever Changes was part of and meditated upon. While some of the 33-1/3 books veer too far in the other direction of very granular, song-by-song analyses that incorporate production notes, recording history, band biography, lyric interpretation, etc., Hulktrans keeps focusing on the demise of the optimistic hippie phase of the sixties. Still, it’s an era that we’re still fascinated with, and I appreciated the hermetic interpretation of the album’s themes.

[Steve Gutin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading this one.
Done. All the 33&1/3 books have different emphases. This one has too much theorizing for my taste, but there's still plenty of nuts-and-bolts stuff about Arthur Lee and the recording of the album.

[T. H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In stark contrast to the first book of 33 1/3, Dusty in Memphis , Andrew Hultkrans's book on the Love album Forever Changes is much more well thought-out and educational: personally, I would recommend it as a potential starting book for first readers.

From the very beginning, it is made apparent that Hultkrans is very inspired and well-read when it comes to his overall approach to criticism, as well as his own opinion of Forever Changes. Quickly yet thoroughly establishing the album and its relation to the 1960s counterculture, prophecy, revolution, and America as a whole, the author is both able to outright profess his love and admiration for the album, while also being able to indicate it in a more subtle way through his actual analysis.

Hultkrans makes frequent use of referring to other works in his analysis, partly as a way of citing his sources, but also using them to emphasize his ideas and providing starting points for his thesis and conclusions. Hultkrans also makes sure to cite lyrics and passages from the songs themselves, as well as drawing from the experiences of frontman Arthur Lee to tie it all together. At certain points, however, his references veer off into slightly tangential territory, and I was somewhat bewildered by the choice to introduce an entirely new work at the start of the closing chapter.

Throughout his analysis, the author is able to draw good comparisons between Arthur Lee and the prophesiers of the Old Testament, drawing to attention their influence on the culture of the United States from its most nascent stages. I was particularly gripped by this section of the book, especially with its emphasis of how Lee wasn't "preaching, [but] inciting to riot."

The reason why I noted that was because Hultkrans uses the phrase in the postscript as part of a longer advertisement of Lee's new live performances; this didn't really age well due to Lee dying only three years later in 2006. The overall celebratory and excited tone of this postscript didn't fit the rest of the book at all and caused a sense of bathos, especially given a particularly personal and downcast section in chapter 1 where Hultkrans, at length, talks about his many mental health struggles and how he related to Lee as a result.

Overall, while I feel like the thesis was clearly and properly communicated, the book could have potentially benefited from a longer length. The large amount of references in themselves weren't necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like Hultkrans could have maybe used a bit of his own insight as well, since he does seem like an intelligent author. As far as I could tell, however, this was his only book, with the rest of his work seeming to be essays or articles. 'Tis a shame.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to Bryan Adams’ ode, the summer of 1969 was actually quite horrible. In fact, in general the late 60s had a lot more negatives than positives, even though rose-colored glasses tinge nostalgia for it, especially for those who didn’t live through it (I was a toddler at the time and don’t remember any of it firsthand). Delving into this book about an album released in 1967, I was expecting an insight into the making of the music, why this album sounds so unlike others of the time, with its 12-string guitars, orchestral sections, and strangely disjointed lyrics that sometimes run together or over themselves. Hultkrans does a great job of establishing what made Arthur Lee and his band Love different, from the more obvious visual characteristics (frontman Lee was black when many of the other LA bands were decidedly less diverse, unless you counted being Canadian as diversity) to the psychological (Lee, in interviews at the time and afterwards, had a premonition of his own death that proved to be unwarranted). Along the way, Hultkrans fills you in on some trivia about the band and the LA scene. Lee and his bandmates considered calling themselves the Asylum Chorus after the inmates in Peter Weiss’ German play Marat/Sade; Love itself was a truncation of another considered name, Strangelove. Fellow musicians in both LA and San Francisco thought of the band as Hate, given their swagger and attitude. Much of Lee’s strange musings come from the gnostic gospel, including the cryptic song “7 and 7 Is.” At one point, Bobby Beausoleil had been rhythm guitarist for a previous incarnation of the band when they were known as the Grass Roots; Beausoleil would later make a name for himself as the first member of Charles Manson’s “Family” to commit a murder (and for which he remains incarcerated in California). At one point, Love was considered the foremost LA psychedelic band, but Lee’s disdain for touring meant that the band he helped Elektra sign, The Doors, became much more popular.

As with other books in this series, I listened to the album constantly while reading the book. I had been indifferent about the album before, finding only the first track, “Alone Again Or,” worth listening to repeatedly. This book helped open my ears to some of the other tracks, especially “Andmoreagain,” “The Daily Planet,” and “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale.”

[Alden Weird · Rating 1 out of 5]

Las primeras páginas de este librito (perdón por el diminutivo, pero es así) pueden llegar a cautivarte rápidamente. El autor habla sobre los 60s y su caída al oscurantismo, cita a Joan Didion, repasa los asesinatos del clan Manson, el festival de Altamont; y después engancha todo esto con Arthur Lee, según él un profeta que dejó en sus canciones visiones premonitorias de lo que iba a venir. Y te cita algunas líneas.
50 páginas después, el librito no avanzó, ni convenció, ni se movió en ninguna dirección en particular. Sigue citando a Joan Didion (el bendito "nadie estaba sorprendido"), mete citas de otros autores (que por contraste suenan infinitamente más lúcidos y estudiosos que él), y te estampa otras líneas de las canciones de Love. La verdad que decir que está agarrando de los pelos esos versos y arrastrándolos a la fuerza para tratar de hacerlos encajar en sus conclusiones, es un understatement. Para colmo las frases de ese disco sacadas de contexto suenan de lo más pelotudas:
"I believe in magic
Why, because it is so quick
***"
No hay detalles sobre la producción, no habla de influencias musicales... de hecho prácticamente no habla de música. Es un ensayo que mas o menos ya lo resumí arriba, un montón de citas de autores de verdad dudosamente enganchadas... y lo que queda es pura cebadura con Love y Arthur Lee. Me hace acordar a un tuitero que está todo el día exaltando las dos o tres cosas que lo apasionan.
Un librito de un autorcito que me puso de un gran mal humor.

[Pedro João · Rating 4 out of 5]

palavras deliciosas sobre um álbum transcendente sobre o fim de uma era. só conhecia os Love de terem sido (alegado) objeto de plágio pela Madonna e pelo William Orbit (grande malha a "She Comes in Colors"), passei a conhecer não só um dos meus prováveis discos de ilha deserta, mas também a escrita do Andrew Hulktrans (medalha Pedreiro das Letras™).

comparado com o volume anterior (Dusty in Memphis) — que se demorava nas meditações académicas mas perfazia um mini-curso sobre mitos e regiões e mitos que são regiões —, revela um pouco mais o decalque da estrutura 33 1/3 (por vezes mais enciclopédica do que fluida). é o que é. bom livro

[pianogal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was amazingly weird. I had never heard of the album, so I started listening to it before and while reading the book, and I thought - Wow, I really like this weird thing. Then I read the book and learned about how crazy Arthur Lee was(is). This book is about the apocalyptic 60s and the bomb and gnosticism, and The Manson Family (Billy BeauSoleil was a guitar player in Love at one point). It's crazy. But it did keep me entertained. Very entertained.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must’ve listened to most or all of this album twenty times. Come to find out I hadn’t a clue what he was singing about. I was mesmerized by his mannerist vocals and the theatrical hippie-baroque arrangements more than the neo-beat poet obliquity of the lyrics. But this little monograph put Arthur Lee and the album in the context of the times, with emphasis on the building existential dread of the latter 60’s. Art is always about the people and their times and both are always about more than any one thing. And it’s that fluid complexity that occasionally, when the parameters are just so, generates an enduring masterpiece like this album.

The writing was a bit manic-pedantic and cluttered with literary references, which strangely felt like both a strength and a weakness. But I much appreciate his enthusiasm for the topic and thank him for opening my eye-ears to a new dimension in their music.

[AG · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are looking for an introduction to Love, the band, or Forever Changes, the record, you will not find it here. However, if you enjoy essays from students who just read Nausea for the first time, you are in for a treat. Hot tip: if you are a music journalist, don’t be a wanna-be philosopher. Leave that to the literary critics.

[Curmudgeon · Rating 1 out of 5]

A frustrating read that was more about the author’s crackpot theories and interpretations than the album itself. Features a lot of quotations from other books, which all seem like they’d be much more enlightening reads about either Love or the sixties in general than this book was.

[Travis Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really hoping this series finds some grounding later down the road, because these early 33 1/3 offerings are a bit...esoteric.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite its short length this is thorough examination of the collapse of the counter culture enmeshed in a review of one of the greatest albums of the 1960s

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some people tell stories to impart wisdom, others to hear themselves speak. Sadly, this is the latter. A decent writer, but most likely someone who spends a lot of time mansplaining.

[great hit · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes brilliant, sometimes cringey--writer identifies with Arthur Lee's porousness???

[Peseto Loco]

Meh.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting quick read, with a lot of focus on Arthur Lee.

[Mace · Rating 4 out of 5]

very vivid portrait of Arthur Lee and his times, makes a great case for him being the most important prophet in rock music

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hippie rock classic that still sounds fun 50 years on.

[JJ Lehmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Review to come]
and now onto Harvest by Neil Young...

[Augusto Delgado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feels like a blank shot in the dark. A wasted opportunity to give one of the best records ever, Love's third album Forever Changes, a fair assessment, mostly musically than lyrically, if that's possible.

Arthur Lee "a mulatto soul so rare" that didn't buy the flower power hype, but produced "a record Jefferson Airplane never could...". The author claims that Forever Changes is an ode to paranoia á la Kubrick's the Shining or Lynch's Mulholland Drive. That Arthur Lee was paranoid before some Angelinos and the King of Sunset Strip before Jim Morrison. While during most of the book he's forcibly diving into some kind of psycho/social introspection of Arthur Lee's state of mind. And in the process there is loads of name droppings, even somehow tying our hero's travails to the Manson family.

Not so much is written on the music, its composition and evolution during recordings. Nor how the rest of the band contributed to the masterpiece, if at all. Thus it feels like pilfering a great chance to write a better account of a one of the best music albums ever.

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not 100% sure this book deserves 4 stars - it goes into some pretty wild shit (the Gnosticism theories seem to have no bearing in reality, besides the fact that the author has obviously studied Gnosticism, & obviously loves the album - & while there may be some philosophical similarities with some of the lyrics, I could pick just about any school of thought & theorize similarly. As a reader of Dylan commentaries, I'm used to some pretty tenuous connections between the artist's intention & that being hawked by the commentator, but often with Dylan, the mystery seems to suggest that it might be possible. I did not feel that here.) but overall, is just a readable love letter to what is probably my favourite album of all time.

There's nothing mindblowing in here, but I'm not sure I expected that. It's not often you ever get that from these kinds of books. But as an avid fan of the album, it's always nice to pick up something like this & hear about it from someone else.

[Joe Milazzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I try and write a review of Hultkrans' book, I will end up writing a novel, because I cannot write about it except through my own long-term relationship with FOREVER CHANGES. I could NOT recommend reading this book until you've actually spent some time with the album itself -- and you'll definitely want the version that appends the original Love's final single ("Your Mind And We Belong Together / Laughing Stock") to the original LP -- and let the music puzzle and hum its way into your daily rhythms. The main thrust of Hultkrans' argument has a true aim, for sure, but it is not an argument that can really sustain a whole book, not even a book this slender. And there's more to savor in FOREVER CHANGES's weird gingerbread (psychedelic but not druggy, really) than that. But if you feel as if you need something to help you ground yourself with respect to the record and "where it's coming from," this read does offer a certain amount of satisfaction.

[Kaoru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mhff. This one just served to confirm my prejudices, I'm afraid. Personally I never thought that "Forever Changes" is THAT great an album, and that it belongs more to the B-line of 1967's music. Sure, it has a pretty nice sound and a rather timeless production, but in the end it's just an overwritten piece of fluff that thinks of itself as terribly important. And my impression always was that people who cite this record as their favourite generally seem to be the type who are a bit full of themselves and lack humour. And I can't say that this text wiped my preconceptions away. I mean... holy hell, all those big academic words and gratuitously complicated sentences! In the end it's just music, man. So why so serious?

All the background stuff about the dark side of late 1960's hippie culture was pretty interesting, though.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author plunges you into the ferment of the times and illuminates uncanny correspondences between Love, Gnosticism (7 & 7 Is), Marat/Sade, Manson (motel money murder madness), the occult, and Donald Cammell (the director of Performance who later killed himself). Chapter 2 seems to stretch for connections a bit too much, but otherwise this is an exciting reading of a rock album as a work of prophecy, which is what it felt like when my sister and I saw Love at the Double Door in Chicago in 2002(?). Our country at war, Arthur Lee just released from prison -- it remains the only concert I've ever seen by a sixties rock legend that was not nostalgia but present, relevant, alive. Read and listen.