"7 and 7 Is" is a song written by Arthur Lee and recorded by his band Love on June 20, 1966, at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood. It was produced by Paul A. Rothchild and engineered by Bruce Botnick.
The song was released as the A-side of Elektra single 45605 in July, 1966. The B-side was "No. Fourteen", supposedly the 'answer' to the half-sentence formed by the A-side's title but actually an out-take from the band's earlier recordings. "7 and 7 Is" made the Billboard Pop Singles chart on July 30, 1966, peaking at number 33 during a ten-week chart run and becoming the band's highest-charting hit single. The recording also featured on the band's second album, Da Capo.
The song drew inspiration from a high school sweetheart of Arthur Lee's, Anita "Pretty" Billings, who shared his birthday, March 7. It also describes Lee's frustration at teenage life - the reference to "in my lonely room I'd sit, my mind in an ice cream cone" being to wearing (in reality or metaphorically) a dunce's cap. It took a great deal of work to record, with Love's drummer, Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer, being challenged with its frantic demands after 30 takes or so, and being replaced on drums, intermittently, by Arthur Lee himself. It is not clear whether the version eventually released features Pfisterer or Lee, but according to Johnny Echols (lead guitar), in an interview in the book Forever Changes (pg 117) stated that the drumming on the record was Pfisterer. The song climaxes in an apocalyptic explosion - the supposed sound of an atom bomb - before a peaceful conclusion, in a blues form, which then fades out. Although many listeners thought that the explosion at the end of the song was a reverb unit being kicked or dropped, it was (according to the engineer Bruce Botnick in "Forever Changes" book, page 118), in actuality, taken from a sound effects record. He speculated that it was a recording of a gunshot slowed down.
Music critic Robert Christgau called "7 and 7 Is" "a perfect rocker."
Described as "protopunk", it was later covered by numerous bands, most notably the Ramones, Alice Cooper, The Electric Prunes, and Rush, as well as a re-recording by Lee himself. The song was used in the film Bottle Rocket, handpicked by director Wes Anderson and music composer Mark Mothersbaugh.