To The 60's, With Love
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Back in the pre-internet era, I used to ride my pet dinosaur to a job at a high school where I was the youngest person on the staff by a good ten years.
One of the older staff members revealed one day, somewhat sheepishly, that he'd been a member of a one-hit psychedelic band back in the 60's. Needless to say, i thought this was unspeakably cool. I looked at the album cover in the store trying to pick out which one of the band members was my co-worker twenty-five years and forty pounds later.
I carried this information with me into the internet era, when obsessive fans create numerous web pages devoted to even the most obscure bands, so this band that actually had a hit had many many web pages, including one listing pretty much anyone who had ever been on stage with any incarnation of this band. My former co-worker was not listed. Turns out he made the whole thing up.
It was, in the era before the internet, a perfect con, and the psychology behind it stuck with me, and I was determined to write about it someday.
The teacher who lies about having been in a band found his way into a book about a girl with cystic fibrosis. He was going to be her charismatic math teacher. But just to protect the identity of the original fabulist, I couldn't use the real band.
I'd heard a couple of songs by Love on the Underground Garage (it always comes back to Little Steven with me), and I figured this would be pretty nifty, thematically speaking--you know, he lies about the presence of Love in his life, get it? So I downloaded "7 and 7 is," a few other songs from their greatest hits album, and their purported masterpiece, Forever Changes.
In an attempt to understand their teacher, two of my characters download the album too. Here's their reactions:
The music was weird--it wasn't at all like anything she could place. She guessed it was rock because there were guitars, but there were a lot of trumpets and violins, too. The guy sang in this kind of fruity voice, and the lyrics reminded Brianna of "step into the freezer with Uncle Ebenezer" or whatever the crap was that the stoner kids always played at their parties, but then weird lines about people dying and blood coming out of the bathtub and people with snot caked on their clothes kept jumping out at her.
And, later:
"Did you get a chance to listen to the CD?" Adam asked.
"Yeah," Brianna said. "You know what? I really like it! I mean, it's kind of freaky. I don't know. I like the way it's kind of pretty and psycho at the same time."
Adam got a goofy, enthusiastic look on his face. "I'm totally there. I listened to it once and thought it was the weirdest piece of crap ever, but then I couldn't do anything else until I heard it again. I played it probably five times last night."
"You know what I get from it? Well, I mean, I couldn't really tell you what any single song is actuallly about, but i think the album is about how life is really beautiful and horribly ugly at the same time."
All of these are pretty much my own reactions. I approached this album with the skepticism I usually reserve for things that were revered in the 60's, but I came to really love it.
I spent the better part of a year writing this novel, which is by far the longest I've spent on any book. And i listened to Forever Changes the whole time. It is weird and dark and beautiful and it was the perfect soundtrack for a book about learning to live and die.
Since I'm terrible at titles, I often steal them from albums, so I called this book Forever Changes. I thanked Arthur Lee and Love in the acknowledgements, because even if I hadn't, uh, borrowed the title, the book wouldn't have been the same, and might well have never existed without them.
Comments (9)
Great idea! When is this one coming out? I love those questionable characters in life. Meting a bum who claims he played with Hendrix - or something so outrageous you think it's gotta be true. I've met some of these on the non music front and enjoyed their company just from a "you might be lying to me, but you tell a good story" view point.
I like how your brain works! Thanks for the insight into the process.
A label I used to distribute put out an Arthur Lee project and he toured behind it, so I got a chance to see him. He was always on the verge of not showing up, but I happened to catch him on a good night. I'm usually very afraid to see heroes of the past.
I came to Forever Changes well beyond High School (mid 90's) and full of the "psychedelic masterpiece" critical concensus. At first I lamented the lack of RAWK and musically it wasn't that twisted for me. I put it away thinking, hmmmn, I just don't get it.
Then just a couple of years ago when I heard we'd be putting out a Love record I figured I better go back and check it out. I "got" it the second time. Maybe I was just ready to accept something subtle or maybe spending some time in LA and the music business allowed me to see how beauty and destruction can be in the same place at the same time. I guess I'm the one who needed to check his definition of psychedelic.
Side Note, speaking of borrowing from Love:
I checked out other Love records as well but I never heard the same spark. On'69's Out There though, a drum solo that Arthur Lee wanted to remove from the song Doggone has became the basis of tunes for a host of highly regarded down tempo music producers. ◄ Arthur was probably right to want it out 'cause it was 5 minutes long and it doesn't appear in its long form in Love collections, but hey, I like drum solos.
This is funny, because it's almost exactly my own response to Forever Changes. I'd always loved their singles but never heard the albums, until finally I figured i should catch up. I'v come to like it a lot, but it always drifts in and out of my hearing, impossible to hear by sitting down and hearing all the notes. So was it enough for the teacher to capture the girl?
In my early days in LA as a teen who couldn't believe he was finally in Hollywood USA, I used to drive up and down the Strip and sometimes pick up freaks hitchhiking. One day I picked up a guy from Texas. He was in a band. "Which one?" The 13th Floor Elevators. (At a time when hardly anyone knew who they were.) "Oh yeah? What did you play?" The jug. Unbeleeevable! I was sceptical, but finally figured if you were going to lie, you sure wouldn't say this.
Well, the teacher uses the story to make himself appear cool, but his relationship with the main girl is purely platonic. It's a kind of legitimate mentor relationship that helps semi-redeem him from his previous douchebaggery. But the book is primarily about the girl. It comes out on September 2.
And yeah, I don't think anybody would lie about being the jug player in the 13th Floor Elevators...though I do think that would actually be a cooler lie than saying you were the bassist or something.
AMG sez, Tommy Hall was the Juggist..has he changed much?
I'll put a request in for my library to carry it (yeah, I'm that broke)! AS always you have me thinking of my unfinished music inspired stories. Damn you (in a good way)!
Cody - Ha! I'll say! My guy was a guy in his early 20s on a mission to find drugs. That guy looks like he found them. Whether they're the same person, I don't have a clue.
I did a post about Tommy Hall (well the 13th Floor Elevators) and he was or Gilbert Shelton's (The Fabulous Furry Freak Brother's) roomate (I think - I wish I could access my past post's in an easier manner!) pinpointed with helping to bring LSD to Austin Texas. Some people blame him for corrupting Roky with it, but Roky probably would have gone there without the help.
At least he hasn't traded all his software for his habit..here hs is blowing in the 60's..