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LOVE - FOUR SAIL: ARTHUR LEE'S UNDERRATED HARD-PSYCH MASTERPIECE
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Andfurthermoreagain
Andfurthermoreagain
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Re: LOVE - FOUR SAIL: ARTHUR LEE'S UNDERRATED HARD-PSYCH MASTERPIECE
Aug 04, 2017, 13:27
Sin Agog wrote:
Paul Higgins wrote:

Can't believe it didn't even get a mention in 'The Love Story' documentary.


I only watched that documentary a few weeks ago, and it did sort of get a desultory mention. At least they played a few bars from...I think Singing Cowboy and showed the cover, while some critic in love with their own narrative droned on about how Love just didn't have it anymore after Forever Changes. Which is...a bag of shite, isn't it? Four Sail's a melancholic classic, ending with one of the greatest love songs of all time, and featuring some real psychic band interplay for a group s'posedly cobbled together from young jack-the-lads. I liked the documentary, don't get me wrong, but I even got the vibe that those critics convinced Arthur himself that Four Sail, Out Here etc. weren't much cop, which is a thoroughly uncool thing to do, as their peaks move me as much as any other Love songs.


Agreed. Four Sail is 'different*' to Forever Changes and this was the whole point. I think in his (semi) autobiography Arthur states that he'd done the more gentle/acoustic stuff on FC and was aware that a lot of the LA scene was heading in that direction (CSN, Byrds) and in general that whole rise of troubadour folk/country rock after 67. He wanted to go in a different direction and harden up the sound like some of the British bands he admired.
This was partly the reason for changing the line-up - much has been written about the chemical states of the original band around this point but Arthur being Arthur also just wanted to start again and do something different and this helped necessitate the complete change. (And Laughing Stock is probably the greatest instance of someone sacking his band within the lyrics of a song and insidiously having them record it).
Forever Changes is, yes, peerless, timeless and flawless but shouldn't be used as the artistic barometer by critics by which to knock everything that came after. Four Sail is a great record and importantly is 2 sides of a great record which - for the benefit of the 'original line-up' purists is 1 whole side more of a great record than Da Capo.


*mostly different - I'm With You and Always See Your Face are cut from similar cloth to tracks on Forever Changes, which ought to ease people used to FC in gently, except that Four Sail starts with the massive hard rock onslaught of August - which is artistic honesty right there "This is where we're at now so you're gonna have to embrace it immediately!"
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Re: LOVE - FOUR SAIL: ARTHUR LEE'S UNDERRATED HARD-PSYCH MASTERPIECE (Sin Agog)
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