music.wikisort.org - Composition

"A House Is Not a Motel" is a song written by Arthur Lee and first released by Love on their 1967 album Forever Changes.

"A House Is Not a Motel"
Single by Love
from the album Forever Changes
A-side	"Alone Again Or"
Released	January 1968 (1968-01)
Recorded	September 10, 1967
Genre	Folk rock psychedelic rock
Length	3:25
Label	Elektra
Songwriter(s)	Arthur Lee
Producer(s)	Bruce Botnick Arthur Lee

Lyrics and music

The song was likely inspired by the song "A House Is Not a Home" written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, given that Arthur Lee was a fan of their work. It features a descending/ascending psychedelic melody and a folk-rock rhythm.[1] Lee's vocal performance has been described as snarling.[2] According to a friend, Lee got the line about blood mixing with mud turning grey from a Vietnam War veteran.[3]

The song begins with a 12-string guitar playing a riff in E minor. An electric guitar comes in after the second verse, playing a phrase on the top two strings. After the third verse, there is a drum break and twin guitar solo with strange vocal noises. It is one of the sparsest arranged songs on the album.[4]

Reception

AllMusic's Matthew Greenwald called "A House Is Not a Motel" " another one of Arthur Lee's meditations of his own personal world, and it's both beautiful and brutal at the same time." He praised the "acid-magnified imagery" and considered it to be one of the standouts on the album.[1] Considered to be "wonderfully dark" by The AV Club's Kyle Fowle, he wrote that it was "the most rock-oriented song, complete with blazing guitar solos that underscore the lyrical exploration of the chaos and inhumanity of war."[5] David Barker considered the song to be an inversion of "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones and believed that the house Lee was referring to was a church while the motel symbolised the decrepitude of the world.[3]

Treble magazine ranked the song as the 13th best song of the 1960s, calling it "an increasingly escalating series of apocalyptic visions sandwiched between folk-rock plucks and a fiery electric freakout."[6] The German magazine Musikexpress ranked "A House Is Not a Motel" number 429 in its list of the 700 best songs of all time.[7] Uncut listed the song as one of its 50 essential songs from the Summer of Love.[8] The Spanish magazine Hipersonica ranked the song 23rd best of the 1950s and 1960s.[9]

References

---