My Top 1000 Songs #752: Alone Again Or

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

Frankly, there are a ton of classic oldies from the 60s that are undeniably great but left off this list because I sort of take them for granted... songs that have always been out there, from long before my musical awakening, deeply embedded in my consciousness after years of radio airplay and other cultural saturation, that I don't really think about them that much, or at least not in the same way as, say, an R.E.M. or Pavement song that played a huge role in shaping my musical life.

Love's "Alone Again Or," from their 1967 masterpiece Forever Changes, is one of those songs. I love the album, but tend not to play it nearly as much as other records from that magical year of psychedelia. But when its opening track pops up on the radio or shuffle play or in yet another cover version, it's hard not to be impressed every time by its baroque majesty, an unexpectedly complex song, with strings and adventurous melodies, that merges more traditional pop sounds with a pre-prog break from typical 60s radio music, a template of sorts for later post-Sgt. Pepper innovative pop music.

Arthur Lee live 2003:

Continuing the trend of capturing pretty much every track Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs covered on their wonderful 3-CD run of tribute albums.