"7 and 7 Is" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Love | ||||
from the album Da Capo | ||||
B-side | "No. Fourteen" | |||
Released | July 1966 | |||
Recorded | June 17 and 20, 1966 | |||
Studio | Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 2:15 | |||
Label | Elektra | |||
Songwriter(s) | Arthur Lee | |||
Producer(s) | Jac Holzman | |||
Love singles chronology | ||||
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"7 and 7 Is" is a song written by Arthur Lee and recorded by his band Love on June 17 and 20, 1966, at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood. It was produced by Jac Holzman and engineered by Bruce Botnick.
The song was released as the A-side of Elektra single 45605 in July, 1966. The B-side was "No. Fourteen", an outtake from the band's earlier recordings. "7 and 7 Is" made the Billboard Pop Singles chart on July 30, 1966, peaking at number 33 during a ten-week chart run and becoming the band's highest-charting hit single. The recording also featured on the band's second album, Da Capo .
Arthur Lee wrote "7 and 7 Is" at the Colonial Apartments on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. [2] The song was inspired by his high school girlfriend Anita "Pretty" Billings, with whom he shared a birthday of March 7. [3] [nb 1] Describing how the song came to him, Lee stated: "I was living on Sunset and woke up early one morning. The whole band was asleep. I went in the bathroom, and I wrote those words. My songs used to come to me just before dawn, I would hear them in dreams, but if I didn't get up and write them down, or if I didn't have a tape recorder to hum into, I was through. If I took for granted that I could remember it the next day—boink, it was gone." [5] The lyrics describe Lee's frustration at teenage life—the reference to "in my lonely room I'd sit, my mind in an ice cream cone" being to wearing (in reality or metaphorically) a dunce's cap. [6]
Lee's original version of the song was a slow folk song in the style of Bob Dylan. [2] Its arrangement developed as the band experimented in the studio. [7] Bassist Ken Forssi had received a bass fuzz effect unit from an endorsement deal the band had signed with Vox, and Lee suggested Forssi use it on "7 and 7 Is". Lead guitarist Johnny Echols recalled: "We started playing [with it] and at first it sounded strange, but Kenny started doing this sliding bass thing with it. As we played it we could hear that this was something different, something new." [8]
Love recorded "7 and 7 Is" on June 17 and 20, 1966, at Sunset Sound Recorders, [9] with Jac Holzman producing and Bruce Botnick engineering. [10] The fuzz bass was ultimately abandoned as it overpowered the other instruments, but Forssi was able to achieve a similar sound with the feedback caused by his semi-acoustic Eko bass. Echols also used feedback, as well as extensive reverb and tremolo, [11] saying he had wanted to use a surf guitar effect in a different context. [9]
The sessions were tumultuous due to the song's fast and intense drum part, with Lee and drummer Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer taking turns trying to accomplish it. Pfisterer later said: "The session was a nightmare ... I had blisters on my fingers. I don't know how many times I tried to play that damn thing and it just wasn't coming out. Arthur would try it; then I'd try it. Finally I got it. He couldn't do it." [12] Echols praised it as Pfisterer's best performance. [11] Estimates in the number of takes the song required range from 20 to 60; [13] however, most of these were only false starts. [9] The song took 4 hours to record according to Echols, who also claimed that the session took longer due to Holzman and Botnick objecting to the band's experimentation: "they kept stopping us, saying, 'It's feeding back!' We'd say, 'It's supposed to feed back.'" [14]
In what has been called a "flirtation" with musique concrète , [15] the track climaxes with the sound of an atomic explosion before a peaceful conclusion, in a blues form, which then fades out. [6] Botnick said the explosion was taken from a sound effects record and may have been a gunshot slowed down. During live performances, Echols would recreate the sound by kicking his amplifier with the reverb turned all the way up. [16]
Elektra Records issued "7 and 7 Is" in July 1966, backed with "No. Fourteen", an outtake from Love's debut album. [17] It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on July 30 and spent 10 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 33 on September 24. [18] It was the highest-charting single of the band's career. [16] Elektra released the band's second album, Da Capo , in November, [19] with "7 and 7 Is" sequenced as the fourth track, between "¡Que Vida!" and "The Castle". [20]
Music critic Robert Christgau called the song "a perfect rocker". [21] Cash Box described the song as a "pulsating, rhythmic extremely danceable blueser with a clever gimmick wind-up". [22]
Described as garage rock [23] and proto-punk, [24] the song was later covered by numerous bands, most notably The Ramones, Alice Cooper, Jared Louche and The Aliens, [25] The Electric Prunes, Billy Bragg, The Sidewinders, The Fuzztones, Robert Plant, Rush, Alice Bag, and Deep Purple, as well as a re-recording by Lee himself.
Forever Changes is the third studio album by the American rock band Love, released by Elektra Records in November 1967. The album saw the group embrace a subtler folk-oriented sound, acoustic guitar, and orchestration, while primary songwriter Arthur Lee explored darker themes alluding to mortality and his creeping disillusionment with the 1960s counterculture. It was the final album recorded by the original band lineup; after its completion, Bryan MacLean left the group acrimoniously and the other members were dismissed by leader Lee.
The Doors is the debut studio album by American rock band the Doors, released on January 4, 1967, by Elektra Records. It was recorded in August 1966 at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California, under the production of Paul A. Rothchild. The album features the extended version of the band's breakthrough single "Light My Fire" and the lengthy closer "The End" with its Oedipal spoken word section. Various publications, including BBC and Rolling Stone, have ranked The Doors as one of the greatest debut albums of all time.
Love is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965. Led by frontman and primary songwriter Arthur Lee, they were one of the first racially diverse American rock bands. Their sound incorporated an eclectic range of styles including garage, folk-rock, and psychedelia. While finding only modest success on the music charts, peaking in 1966 with their US Top 40 hit "7 and 7 Is", Love would come to be praised by critics as their third album, Forever Changes (1967), became generally regarded as one of the best albums of the 1960s.
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American folk rock band formed in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1964. The band was among the most popular groups in the United States for a short period in the mid-1960s and their music and image influenced many of the contemporary rock acts of their era. Beginning in July 1965 with their debut single "Do You Believe in Magic", the band had seven consecutive singles reach the Top Ten of the U.S. charts in the eighteen months that followed, including the number two hits "Daydream" and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" and the chart-topping "Summer in the City".
L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on April 19, 1971, by Elektra Records. It is the last to feature lead singer Jim Morrison during his lifetime, due to his sudden death exactly two months and two weeks following the album's release. Even more so than its predecessors, the album is heavily influenced by blues. It was recorded without record producer Paul A. Rothchild after he quit the band over a perceived lack of quality in their studio performances. Subsequently, the band co-produced the album with longtime sound engineer Bruce Botnick.
Arthur Taylor Lee was an American musician, singer and songwriter who rose to fame as the leader of the Los Angeles rock band Love. Love's 1967 album Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and it is part of the National Recording Registry.
"Hey Joe" is an American song from the 1960s that has become a rock standard and has been performed in many musical styles by hundreds of different artists. The lyrics tell of a man who is on the run and planning to head to Mexico after shooting his unfaithful wife. In 1962, Billy Roberts registered "Hey Joe" for copyright in the United States.
Da Capo is the second studio album by American rock band Love, released in January 1967, by Elektra Records. The album was recorded between September and October 1966 at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California, with the exception of "7 and 7 Is", the single that preceded the album's distribution and became the band's biggest commercial hit.
Love is the debut album by the Los Angeles-based rock band Love; released in March 1966 by Elektra Records.
Four Sail is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Love, released in 1969 by Elektra Records.
"Alone Again Or" is a song originally recorded in 1967 by the rock group Love and written by band member Bryan MacLean. It appears on the album Forever Changes, and was released as a single in the USA, UK, Australia, France and the Netherlands.
Bryan Andrew MacLean was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the influential rock band Love. His famous compositions for Love include "Alone Again Or", "Old Man" and "Orange Skies".
Tim Buckley is the debut album by Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Tim Buckley, released in October 1966. Most of the songs on it were co-written by Buckley and Larry Beckett while they were in high school. It was recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, California.
John Marshall Echols is an American songwriter and guitarist, who was a co-founder and the lead guitar player of the psychedelic rock band Love.
Clear Light is the only studio album by the American psychedelic rock band Clear Light, released in September 1967, by Elektra Records. The album was a moderate success.
"Bluebird" is a song recorded by the American rock group Buffalo Springfield. It was written and produced by Stephen Stills, with co-production by Ahmet Ertegun. In June 1967, Atco Records released it as a single to follow-up their hit "For What It's Worth" (1966).
"She Comes in Colors" is a song written by Arthur Lee and released by the band Love as a single in 1966 and on their 1966 album Da Capo. It was also included on a number of Love compilation albums, including Love Revisited and Best of Love and on the multi-artist compilation album Forever Changing: The Golden Age of Elektra 1963–1973.
"My Little Red Book" (occasionally subtitled "(All I Do Is Talk About You)") is a song composed by American songwriter Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David. The duo were enlisted by Charles K. Feldman to compose the music to Woody Allen's film What's New Pussycat? following a chance meeting between Feldman and Bacharach's fiancé Angie Dickinson in London. "My Little Red Book" was composed in three weeks together with several other songs intended for the movie. Musically, the song was initially composed in the key of C major, largely based on a re-iterating piano riff performed. David's lyrics tells the tale of a distraught lover, who after getting dumped by his girlfriend browses through his "little red book" and taking out several girls to dance in a vain effort to get over her.
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