A fabulous band from Los Angeles. A darling of the Underground.
They produced three brilliant albums before heroin rather messed up their lives.
I was fortunate to see the later incarnation live. Arthur Lee had harnessed a young band and they were brilliant – every bit as good as the original. Johnny Echols played with them on one occasion.
Meeting Arthur was like meeting a legend!
Then, just when the band was pulling in huge crowds, he gets ill and dies. Life is so unfair.
But today I will be playing my three favourite Love albums and wallowing in the music!
Love, Sex, Romance, Friendship, Hormones, Brain Chemistry, Biology and Evolution.
It was Cheryl who sparked these thoughts off.
As a Biologist I am always aware of what puppets we are to our genes, chemistry and psychology. We think we have free will but I believe it is largely a myth. We are ruled by our evolution.
As a species we are so new that our body chemistry and psychology hasn’t even begun to keep pace with our technology. We are chimps living in cities but acting like we are still in the jungle.
Friendship – such a crucial element for hunting. When you are out in the jungle with dangerous animals you have to put your trust in the friend next to you. Together, as a small hunting group, you can drive off a fearsome predator or make a kill that will feed the whole tribe. As a young hunter you had respect. Your friendship group of fellow hunters were trusted friends – you put your life in their hands; you faced danger and fear together; you bonded through terror. Your bravery and loyalty was crucial.
Now-a-days we see groups of youths in gangs on the streets in their hunting groups. Except there are no predators to ward off or beasts to kill. Yet they still crave the excitement and danger, still bond and seek the respect. They’ve lost their purpose and status.
Love – a biological phenomenon to pair bond sufficiently to have, and raise, children. An hormonal rush, endorphin saturation of the brain, and a passing phase. The female selects the highest status male she can. The aim is to find compatible genes to meld with her own in order to produce offspring who are endowed with the best in order to survive. The pair bonding is a euphoric rush of brain chemicals – no more. It induces feelings of protection and promotes crazy bouts of sex. The idea being that while the male is infatuated and the female hampered by pregnancy and an infant, he will protect and provide. But the love that will last forever soon loses its glow as after the duration necessary for the child to grow, the brain chemicals subside. A new infatuation develops with other potential partners – it is better no to put all your eggs in one basket (so to speak). A different set of genes provides more survival possibilities for a female’s offspring. Genetic variation. DNA testing in modern families show that a high proportion of children from supposedly loyal monogamous marriages have different fathers. Biologically we are programmed to be serial monogamists and some males more promiscuous (the cuckoo effect). Women are seduced by status.
Yet we also see that once the hormones and brain chemistry subsides there is the possibility of a different relationship – based on respect, affection, trust and ‘love’. It is deeper and less frenetic and brings pleasure and contentment. It is a different partnership.
Poetry – You Breathe My Breath – a love poem for old love.
You Breathe My Breath
When you live with someone for nearly fifty years it is as though you are one. Everything about you has been affected, adjusted and adapted as you learn to rub along.
You have, not only a shared past, but share visions for the future.
Everything we do has been refined as we learn from each other. Both of us would be the less if the other were not there.
We have someone to share stories, bounce ideas off, to lean on and gain perspective, to share wisdom and see more objectively.
Two heads are always better than one. We see things from different angles. We have different strengths, different weaknesses.
Together we are stronger, more confident and better.
You cannot reach so high when you haven’t got a steady shoulder to lean on.
My Mountains
We cannot live without a heart, without recognition of something worth more than ourselves.
Love gives purpose to existence. It makes us strong, bolsters us when weak and generates power.
In an infinite universe it is not good to be alone.
To share a tea, a sunset or a quiet moment is transcendental. It is enough.
There is nothing more important than love. It is the antidote to the hatred and cruelty that destroys the world.
My Mountains
You are my mountains, hazed with blue mist
My sky
My sun
You are my forests, seas and wind
My stars
My rain
You are my volcanoes and hills
My soil
My trees
You are the ground underneath my feet
My air
My wind
You are my moon serene in the heavens
My clouds
My flowers
You are the touch that wakens me
My morning
My day
You are all the time I hold in my heart
My streams
My shore
You are in me beating with life
My blood
My guts
Without you there is only silence, darkness and perpetual night
For you are my light, my beauty and my truth.
Nothing can exist without you.
Love were one of the best bands ever but subject to the same ego and frailties that laid most bands low. Fame brings it’s excesses and turns out to be nothing like imagined. It destroys most people. It destroyed Love.
Love
Contrary to the connotations of the name Love were not always soft and full of flower-power naivety. They came steaming out of the heat of Los Angeles with its urban gangs, racial tribalism and harsh culture. Los Angeles was a city like no other. It sprawled out from the freeways and boulevards and was constructed for the motorcar. It was not a place you could walk the streets; you cruised in your Cadillac and frequented the Sunset Strip to sample the London Fog or Whiskey-a-go-go where the action was.
Love’s first couple of albums were earthy with a Punk feel to them. The songs were melodic and memorable but they had an edge to them that was raw and full of energy.
Arthur Lee and Bryan Maclean shared the writing and vocals creating a great blend of harmonies that fitted well with the guitar-based rhythms.
Those albums were groundbreaking but Love really came together on the third; the immaculate Forever Changes. This reflected their song-writing, musicianship, vocals and production all at their peak. It was one of the stand-out albums of that Acid Rock period. This was a masterpiece of West Coast Hippie culture that has been voted the best album of all time a couple of times. The album has sophistication and is complex with a divine sound without losing the immediacy and distinctiveness of the band. I love it.
Love captured the counter-culture feel of Los Angeles in the heady days of the sixties.
They also epitomise its collapse.
All the idealism and hopes of those times crumpled. The creative force dried up and it descended into violence, hard drugs, free-loading and sell-out. Greed and abuse destroyed it.
Hard drugs were the main reason for Love’s decline. It was all so predictable. After having broken big they were consumed with adulation, sycophancy and overwhelmed with expectation. They were plied with heroin. After the adrenaline high of performance it is difficult to come down and return to any normality. They were hugely successful, swamped with groupies and expected to live the life.
They were young men and succumbed. After one last OK album they split up.
Bryan went on to produce one solo album before going off into Christian Rock and dying in 1998.
Arthur stumbled along reforming versions of Love but failing to recapture the magic. He got himself into trouble discharging a fire-arm and ended up with a prison sentence.
It wasn’t until the 2000s that he finally got it back together. He found himself a group of young musicians called Baby Lemonade (After a Syd Barrett psychedelic number). He groomed them and formed a new vibrant incarnation of Love.
Suddenly the energy and magic was back. They were every bit as good as the original band in their heyday.
I caught a number of their concerts and they rocked. They even got Johnny Echolls back for a concert. I asked him where he’d been and he said ‘Around’.
Arthur wore his fables leather jacket and a headscarf and looked and sounded brilliant. The band was pulling enthusiastic crowds. Was it all about to happen again?
I had a chat with an enthusiastic Arthur. He was full of optimism and talked of recording an album of original material.
Just as it appeared that it was going to come to fruition and culminate in a renaissance Arthur was diagnosed with leukaemia.
