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              .................... LOVE ....................       

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                  USA - GOLD - Elektra - EKS 4005 - STEREO

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Da Capo is brilliant in its own right, a dazzling kaleidoscopic trip through stoned 1967 Los Angeles, a practically perfect pop record.

Kick-starting with the carnival jingle-jangle of “Stephanie Knows Who,” Love lead singer, Arthur Lee hollers and wails a love poem to a girl named Stephanie, backed by church organs, flailing electric guitar licks, and rat-tat-tat drums. Listening to the song, its not hard to see why Jim Morrison called Love his favorite Los Angeles band, as The Lizard King clearly swiped Lee’s emphatic grunts and “c’mon” chants.

“Orange Skies” the album’s lone Bryan Maclean track, settles into a mellow psychedelic vibe, as the simply worded love song tosses out halcyon images like orange skies, cotton candy, carnivals and nightingales. It might be all hippy-dippy nonsense, but if you use your imagination, you can be instantly transported to Topanga Canyon in 1966, visualizing Maclean reclining back on a wood-grain balcony, trying not to wrinkle the paisley shirt he was inevitably rocking, staring into a blinding late afternoon sun and smoking what Ghost would call a baseball spliff.

“Que Vida,” the album’s third track marks a stark departure from the pleasant vibe of the first two songs, flashing the morbid undertones that Lee further explored on Forever Changes. While the songs honeyed electric guitars and velvet drums conjure nothing but pleasant vibes, the lyrics are a different story, fraught with indecision, and melancholic uncertainty. From there, the album darts suddenly into the frenetic 2 minute jam “Seven & Seven Is,” a ripping garage punk number with freak-out lyrics that literally climaxes and explodes...

One of the main reasons why the album gets less attention than Forever Changes is the half-finished nature of the songs, reflecting the mere five days that the band recorded the album in (or how much acid they were on). While the melodies are all fully-formed, the lyrical content seems like pencil sketchings of ideas to be expanded on at a later date. “The Castle,” named after the band’s Los Feliz Residence, is under 50 words and doesn’t make all that much sense. Meanwhile, the penultimate song, “She Comes in Colors” seems overly simplistic by today’s standards, but taken as a pure love song, not many come more gorgeous, all willowy flutes, sunshine organs and Lee’s tear drop voice that adds an emotional heft to the number. If you’ve ever heard “She’s a Rainbow” from The Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, you’ll notice its close and admittedly intentional similarity.

The album ends with a sprawling 19-minute jam, “Revelation” with its loose improvised riffing, searing harmonica solos and the hints of the power of Love’s dynamic stage show. The album amply displays why Love have been called the quintessential Los Angeles band, capturing the city’s uneasy balance of lobotomized sunshine simplicity and its noir underbelly. One of the finest records of the 60s, Da Capo might have its rough-edges but it remains a brilliant early work from Arthur Lee, one of America’s greatest songwriters

Stephanie Knows Who

Orange Skies

Que Vida!

Seven & Seven Is

The Castle

She Comes in Colors

B:

Revelation (18:57)

CONDITION: The Cover: is rated  top clean M- so hard to find without wear, always the black front cover around the gold frame has wear, this copy = NO wear! Completely solid and stiff all over and the back cover is M- TOPS! ... NO delete marks, no split seams - no writing - bright original colors = it's the 50 year old first press... collectible worthy !!!

The Vinyl: is glossy on both sides, visually VG+ as small scuffs, plays way better, both sides play very clean/enjoyable with excellent audio ...Both gold Elektra labels are CLEAN