100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #34 Love – Alone Again Or

Released: 1968

Arthur Lee and Bryan Maclean couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds; Lee was an emigree to Los Angeles from Memphis, a child prodigy who could play by ear who was also a street tough, MacLean from an LA family on the fringes of Hollywood, who as an adolescent dated a young Liza Minelli.

Originally being hipped to folk, a seventeen year old Maclean landed a job with as a roadie with The Byrds through a relationship with David Crosby. When that dissolved he came across Lee at Ben Frank’s Cafe on Sunset Strip. Lee was black and MacLean was white and rightly few seemed to care, but when they emerged in late 1965 Love were playing a distinctive brand of pop facing garage rock. After releasing two albums within twelve months the following year, their third Everything Changes was a huge step forward.

It was also one sideways. Lee was disdainful of the acid induced scene that had eneveloped them, becoming reclusive and unwilling to meet people’s expectations. On Forever Changes the band experimented in their own way, adding baroque pop, classical and mariachi references to their creative pallette. Alone Again Or however was written by MacLean and recorded without Lee even being present. In a move symbolic of the rupturing forces that were about to pull them apart, a reputedly jealous Lee later remixed the track and changed it’s name.

Whatever the background, MacLean’s paean to a stranded relationship overshadows much of the band’s legacy, a song that has come to define them, encapsulating both Lee’s vision and the imbalance between the two men. They came from two very different backgrounds – and sometimes these external things mean the centre is doomed to not hold.