Your influential but overlooked song from an influential but overlooked album of the day is “Alone Again Or” by the band Love, from their album Forever Changes. It’s one of those songs you know when you hear it, but probably wouldn’t think of otherwise. It was released as a single in January of 1968 but only bubbled under the Billboard Hot 100. That version was severely edited and remixed from the track that was on Forever Changes, however, and the original, longer album version was later re-released as a single in September of 1970, when it peaked at #99.
With that type of chart performance, it’s natural that you don’t remember the song—you may never have heard it originally. But “Alone Again Or” has had a bit of a long tail, as they say these days, having been featured in several major motion pictures, including Bottle Rockets and Sleepers. It’s a really good tune but certainly a little different from the hippy-dippy stuff on the airwaves in 1968 and the more poppish one-hit wonder tunes in 1970. With its flamenco acoustic guitars and Mariachi horns it has a definite Latin flavor with touches of Baroque pop, not really something you can easily dance to. The song’s unusual stop-and-start structure also doesn’t help, nor does the enigmatic title that doesn’t track any hook in the lyrics. (The exact line in the song, at the end of the chorus, is “And I will be alone again tonight, my dear,” with no “or.”) It just didn’t sound like anything else on the radio back then, which I think is to its benefit.
All that said, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Alone Again Or” as #436 on its list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. All the right people know it, too, which means something; it’s been covered by UFO, the Boo Radleys, the Oblivians, the Chris Perez Band, Calexico, Les Fradkin, Sara Love, and Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs on their first Under the Covers Album (which you need to check out, if you haven’t yet—those two know and respect songs like this one).
“Alone Again Or” was the lead track on the album Forever Changes, which is just as influential and just as forgotten as its first and only single. Released in November of 1967, the album only got as far as #154 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It’s gotten more respect in retrospect, however, called “one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love,” named the second-greatest psychedelic albums of all time by Mojo magazine, ranked #180 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. Not bad for an album that practically nobody bought or listened to on its original release.
The band Love was comprised of singer Arthur Lee, guitarist/singer Bryan MacLean, guitarist Johnny Echols, bassist Ken Forssi, and drummer Snoopy Pfisterer. “Alone Again Or” was written by MacLean and sung by both MacLean and Lee. MacLean and most of the others left the band after Forever Changes, leaving Arthur Lee to carry on with new members, releasing several additional, though equally unsuccessful albums. MacLean later became a Contemporary Christian artist, passing away in 1998, aged 52, of a heart attack. Lee spent five years in prison, starting in 1996, for the negligent discharge of a firearm, and passed away in 2006 of leukemia, aged 61. Forssi died of a brain tumor in 1998, aged 54. Echols and Pfisterer are both still alive.
If you want to delve deeper into “Alone Again Or” and its meaning and impact, check this in-depth analysis in Medium. For a later look at the album Forever Changes, check out this retrospective review from Kyle Fowle of the AV Club. And definitely give Forever Changes a listen—it is a wonderful album, both outside of and of its time.
