Songfacts®:

• "7 and 7 Is" is 14. It's also a song released by Love, written by frontman Arthur Lee, and recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood on June 20, 1966. By the way, the B-side was the song "No. Fourteen." See, they liked their gimmick. This was Love's only charting hit.
• Love is regarded today as one of the protopunk bands. In typical protopunk style, they seemed to labor under a curse - and it hit Love harder than just about anybody else. Lead singer and frontman Arthur Lee served prison time on a weapons charge after hitting California's "three strikes" limit for other offenses. While he was incarcerated, Love bassist Ken Forssi died of a suspected brain tumor at age 54, and Love rhythm guitarist Bryan MacLean died of a heart attack at age 52 (on Christmas!) after a significant struggle with heroin addiction. Then Lee was released, and died of complications from leukemia at age 61.
  
  If Ken Forssi rings a bell for you surf-punks, that's because before Love he played bass for The Surfaris. They were the ones with "Wipe Out."
• Bands to cover "7 and 7 Is" include The Ramones, Alice Cooper, Rush and Deep Purple. Also, the Sacramento, California band The 77s reference this song in their name. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3
• Lee drew inspiration for the enigmatic title from a teenage sweetheart, Anita Billings, who shared his birthday, March 7.
• The surreal lyrics provide a glimpse into Lee's teenage life.
  
  In my lonely room I'd sit my mind in an ice cream cone
  
  Lee's schoolteacher mother made him sit alone in his room when he got bad grades at school. The ice cream cone is a metaphor for him wearing (metaphorically or in reality) a dunce cap.
• Lee originally came up with the lyrics at the colonial apartments on Sunset Boulevard. He woke up early one morning and went in the bathroom while the rest of the band slept. "My songs used to come to me just before dawn," he told writer Phil Gallo. "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."
• As a side note, the first Lee composition that came near to being a hit was "My Diary," written in 1964. Penned for R&B singer Rosa Lee Brooks, Lee's lyrics were about his breakup from Anita Billings. Searching for musicians to play on the session, he recruited a then-unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix.