High in the Hollywood Hills, the Sunset Strip at his feet, one of rock's great loners makes his last stand. Convinced of his own impending death Arthur Lee has just given the world his epitaph in Love's Forever Changes and is now confronted by the prospect of a very mortal afterlife. The opening to the band's 1968 single Your Mind And We Belong Together gets right to the point:
I would like to understand just why
I feel like I have been through hell
Can you tell me?
I haven't even started yet
A multi-part suite jammed onto four and a half minutes of vinyl, Your Mind throws all of Love's tricks into service of Lee's spiritual autobiography. It begins as a taut rock song anchored by staccato guitars then the melody curves and ascends like the vertiginous road to The Castle, the band's hillside manor, only to crash into a minor key finger-picked lament with Lee's stressed croon:
So many people
They just seem to clutter up my mind
A lone pulsing guitar returns, the band churns, and Lee draws some conclusions:
I'm locking my heart in the closet
I don't need anyone oh no
You'll find me behind the door
A brief chorus of lilting wordless "ahs", a glimpse of clear blue sky amidst black clouds, and the storm resumes with a long coruscating fuzz guitar solo by the great Johnny Echols taking us out.
The few people who bothered to flip the record over found the initially confounding Laughing Stock, a schizophrenic continuation of Your Mind's themes. Lee intones cryptically over Bryan Maclean's flamenco-inspired guitar before the band kicks into a frantic Bo Diddley-ish rave up and we meet a disconcertingly direct chorus:
I keep on playing my drums
I keep on singing my songs (...)
I keep on doing all the things
That I shouldn't have to do
After the single flopped the rest of the band drifted away or were fired and Lee was left alone. Love would continue in name but really it was all over except the long, sad decline of drugs, jail, death and the song Doggone.
Now that I've cheered you up here's the great video for the song, with Arthur Lee ambling around the Hollywood Hills, cooing over his pigeons and fondling a groovy white chick. Bryan Maclean drinks a beer.
Your Mind And We Belong Together
Hard to believe they made a video for such an uncommercial song in 1968 but there's an appropriate sense of futility in the effort.
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