The Love Album

Side 1

• Why Do You Do Me Like You Do?
  • 2:26
• The Six O'Clock Train and a Girl with Green Eyes*
  • 2:38
• Springtime All Over Again
  • 2:10
• Landscape Grown Cold
  • 2:16
• This Eve of Parting*
  • 2:30
• I Would Not Be Here
  • 2:19

• Natural to Be Gone
  • 1:46
• Empty Afternoon of Summer Longing
  • 2:20
• A Simple Thing As Love*
  • 2:54
• Windows
  • 2:28
• Prayer
  • 1:27
• Love is Sweeter*
  • 2:45

Liner Notes

John Hartford's "Word-Movies" on Love

When John Hartford came to me with his first tape of songs and asked me to listen to it, I couldn't believe what I heard! It was the first time I ever knew anyone to write with so much realism. The songs were so different that I asked him what he called them. he commented, "Word-Movies. When I write a song, I really write a picture. I use the music for emphasis, sort of like a sound track behind a movie, or I guess you could say I'm trying to paint with sound."

I've spent most of my years in the music business, working with country and folk-pop music, but I wasn't sure I understood exactly what John meant; however, in the next few months I spent every available minute listening to John's "Word-Movies."

To add to my confusion, John would bring in a new tape nearly every week, ranging from six to fifteen songs he had written. The more I listened, the more I really began to dig what he was doing, writing and saying.

It was about this time that I got together with RCA Victor's Felton Jarvis and Chet Atkins to make plans for John. We wanted to capture the unique John Hartford on record.

Later, when I told John our plans, I fully expected him to jump up and down and shout something like, ". . . Fantastic," or "You're putting me on!" Instead, his only comment was, "If that's what you think I ought to do."

I really don't believe the thought of recording held much fascination for him. Perhaps he was afraid he would somehow get lost in commercialism and his "Word-Movies" would become "horror pictures" with weird electronic backgrounds of confusion.

John has always insisted that his writing is made up of many things that he simply has to say. His interest in whether anyone else agrees, likes, or even listens, is secondary. "I am what I am and I write what I think."

THE LOVE ALBUM is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful collections of thoughts on love I have ever comes across. A Simple Thing As Love could well be the theme of this album, for it's an expression of how John feels.

Love in itself is so simple; it is only the surrounding circumstances that complicate it.

Chuck Glaser

LSP-3884
Released: 1968

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