Spence had been committed to Bellevue following a delusion-driven attempt to attack Moby Grape bandmates Don Stevenson and Jerry Miller with a fire axe.

[6] According to Spence, the Nashville sessions were intended by him to only be a demo, which he gave to Rubinson with the intent that the songs would be fleshed out with full production for the actual album.

[6] In June of 1968, Alexander "Skip" Spence was admitted into the Psychiatric Ward of New York's Bellevue Hospital in lower Manhattan, putting an end to a highly creative period of his life.

Unbeknownst to everyone involved with his career at that point, Bellevue provided Spence the safety he needed and the time to create what was to become his best-known work.As described by critic Ross Bennett: Combining the ramblings of a man on the brink of mental collapse with some real moments of flippancy and laughter, Oar is a genuinely strange record.

Even the straightforward narratives such as the love ballad "Broken Heart" or "Cripple Creek" — which feature vocal treatments reminiscent of folkie Fred Neil — are bathed in unusual chord sequences and lyrical double-entendre.

[13]The album is viewed by critic John Reed in the Boston Globe: When former Moby Grape guitarist/singer Alexander "Skip" Spence died in April, it was another sad footnote in the unfruitful saga of one of rock's most multi-talented, but terminally inauspicious, bands.

"Weighted Down (The Prison Song)" is a seemingly distant cousin of "Hey Joe," with Spence jealously asking a mate, "Whose socks were you darning, darling, while I've been gone so long?"

It featured covers of the original record's tracks by Robert Plant, Robyn Hitchcock, Tom Waits, Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan, Beck, Diesel Park West, Mudhoney, and others.

[15] In 2019, for Record Store Day, a 7" single of "I Want A Rock & Roll Band" backed with a previously unreleased version of "I Got A Lot To Say / Mary Jane" was released by label Modern Harmonic.