The 19-minute “Revelation,” a bluesy/R&B jam that by most accounts Lee and the band came to regret using on the album. “You can tell her from the clothes she wears.” The care and precision in the production foreshadow “Forever Changes.” Keith Richards said “She Comes in Colors” inspired the Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow.” “My love she comes in colors,” Lee sings over and over. About 20 seconds in, the song shifts from an easy tempo to barely restrained rock. A flute drifts over the love song, sung with precision by Lee. “She Comes in Colors” is Love’s version of a power ballad. Listen for the quick detour into dissonance. “The Castle” shows off the chops of new drummer Michael Stewart and features a jangly take on Spanish fingerpicked guitar. “Que Vida!” continues the theme, with a B3 organ streaming below the surface. “Orange Skies,” from the band’s terrific second songwriter Bryan MacLean, brings us the delightfully trippy lyric “Orange skies, carnivals and cotton candy and you.” Touches of samba with Tijay Cantrelli’s flute as the lead instrument. Some versions of the album have a version of the song preceded by 50 seconds of studio patter that captures Lee’s frustration with “take 77.” (Pfisterer, classically trained, moved to harpsichord and organ for this album.)
Legend has it that Lee and the band’s original percussionist, Snoopy Pfisterer, alternated playing the difficult and exhausting drum part, with no one sure whose work appears on the album. “Seven & Seven Is” was covered by the Ramones and Alice Cooper among many others. The song anticipates punk rock and sonic anarchy. The a-bomb apparently had nothing to do with the song’s content, a visit to Lee’s family living room. The rage of drums, bass and guitar gives way to the sound of an atomic bomb explosion, accompanied by a jazzy soft guitar. When rocks fans think of Love, they usually conjure up “Forever Changes,” “My Little Red Book” and this frantic yet somehow cohesive piece. “Seven & Seven Is” could be the most explosive 2 1/2 minutes in ’60s rock.
The second side of “Da Capo,” alas, is dedicated entirely to the notorious jam “Revelation,” which has done great damage to the otherwise brilliant album’s rep. Lee and company succeed at this without pandering, producing some of their best songs. The first side of “Da Capo” is a lovely experiment in fusing sounds from rock, Latin rhythms, jazz and classical. The band had expanded to seven players, upgraded its drummer, added woodwinds and, of all things, integrated a harpsichord. (Key parts of “Forever Changes” were played by hired hands.) “Da Capo” is, in a sense, a more adventurous album than “Forever Changes.” In any case, these tracks are among the finest recordings of Love as musicians. Many musicians’ minds were blown by its collage of sounds and crazyquilt of influences, the material clearly ahead of its time. The album was followed and overshadowed by the rock masterpiece “Forever Changes,” but the songs here are streaked with brilliance and innovation. “Da Capo” was Arthur Lee and Love’s second album, out of three made with his core group of L.A.
LOVE DA CAPO FREE
The resulting passage is more in tune with free jazz than psychedelic music - although this is unmistakably a hard rock song. In the break, all of the song’s instruments collide and veer off in different directions. It’s not the worst album on the list, but I fail to see any greater value in it that merits its inclusion.Seconds into the opening track, “Stephanie Knows Who,” it’s clear that “Da Capo” represented new directions for Love and for rock.Ī harpsichord dances with guitar in the lovely prelude.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what this record is doing on the 1001. Speaking of pretentious bands - Love’s major claim to fame is actually that they helped launch The Doors career.On a whole, though, this album is a bit pretentious for my taste, without earning that pretention. That 20-minute closing track, “Revelation,” has its moments. The album isn’t a total dud middle track “Seven and Seven Is” genuinely rips, a vision of a punk band that Love just didn’t seem to want to be.The effect of all of this doesn’t really impress me it’s bombastic for the sake of bombast, not for any greater purpose. You’ve got an influx of baroque sounds - harpsichord, flute, etc - making this perhaps the first major chamber pop record? It messes around with form a bunch too the album is seven songs long, the first six of which constitute the first side of the record and the seventh of which is nearly twenty minutes long. This is an interesting record, though not particularly great.
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