The Brian Jonestown Massacre - If I Love You?

If I love you girl I want you to know. That I'm never ever letting you go.

Album: Bravery, Repetition & Noise [8th album]
Genre: Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Folk Rock
Album Release: October 31st 2001
Length: 2:31
Producer: Anton Newcombe & Rob Campanella
Vocalist: Anton Newcombe [age 34]
Label: Bomp!

Official Audio


Live in 2001


'If I Love You?' Extended Mix

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Spotify: 350,000 +
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Credits & Gear

Details

• 'If I Love You?' was released also released as a 7 track EP. 
• 'If I Love You?' is central to 'Bravery, Repetition & Noise' with three songs, or 25% of the album, centred around the question. There's 'If I Love You?' which is followed by 'I Love You (Always)' which is in turn followed by an extended mix of 'If I Love You?'. It's as if the singer can't make his mind up. The tracklist is an indicator of the songwriters troubled romance. It shows an on again off again love which replicates the confusing feelings a person can have in a turbulent relationship. It's the album art equivalent of picking the petals off a daisy but instead of asking "does she love me? does she love me not?" its if I love you? I love you, if I love you.
  
  
• Anton Newcombe is a man born thirty years too late. His own brand of psychedelic heroin rock is just as good as Jefferson Airplane or Jimi Hendrix and would have made rolling around in the mud at Woodstock feel like a heavenly experience. That the majority of BJM's music was made in the nineties doesn't take anything away from it. It was modern classic, timeless sleek black, brimming with authenticity and creativity while updating old formulas to make a familiar psychedelia new again.
  
  
• Some people say that less is more but in the case of Brian Jonestown more was definetly more. The band took sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll to new heights and with such a fast lifestyle came a lot of, well, everything. There were a lot of drugs, a lot of fights and a lot of band members with new faces coming and going all the time. The band has had over 50 members, albeit not at the same time. They also had a lot of songs. Band leader Anton Newcombe, the only mainstay throughout the groups history, wrote and produced over 150 from 1995 to 2003. The group released three albums in 1996 alone.
  
  I can't help but feel that if the band had condensed their best music into one album every three years then they could have made something truly special. They were an undeniably talented band but their chaotic lifestyle was never suited to the professionalism of the mainstream.
  
  Their live shows would sometimes disintegrate into impromptu stripping sessions with members of the group, undoubtedly high, deciding that clothes were optional and revealing parts only Jesus was supposed to see. It's not the type of thing you could imagine at Glastonbury.
  
  The unpredictable timing of the bands releases were also a part of their appeal. They were wild, and not just for the cameras. They were a hectic calamity of a band whose music couldn't be separated from the surrounding chaos.
  
  Somewhere within the madness however was genius trying to get out and on certain songs, if you listen in the right way, it briefly comes into focus, only to fade out again. There's a universe where Anton Newcombe's name is mentioned in the same breath as John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger as one of the worlds great songwriters. He didn't quite make the masterpiece he strived for but that doesn't mean there wasn't glory in the attempt.
  
  
• The bands exploits are detailed in the 2004 documentary 'Dig!'. The film was the closest the band ever came to mainstream success.
  
  

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