Life's Greatest Fool opens against a western backdrop. The music lopes along like a horse and rider trotting west across a painted desert at the end of a movie, various scrub grasses and saguaros casting shadows in the early evening. The panorama rolls out under the eye of Gene Clark, who shrugs (maybe spits some tobacco juice on the dusty ground) and contemplates:
Some walk out winners of those who've lost...
Metaphors and proverbs, the questions, the mysteries. Pondering the esoteric, the profound. What's it all about? My big love of this song is when Gene plaintively stretches out the final opening lines:
Is this the only life for everyone
is it the same?
The way he sings everyone. Wow, I just want to give this guy a hug, this is a heavy soul.
At 1:15, the music turns soulful, joined by gospel singers, as if asking the questions that only a higher power can answer necessitates a more sacred presentation.
A guitar solo from Jesse Ed Davis directs these thoughts to the sky at 1:51, maybe the universe is listening?
It's all cake after 3:00, everyone singing out, now full of optimism, another guitar solo over the final chord progression, and away into the sunset we ride.
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