What’s your favorite ELO lyric?
It’s funny how lyrics operate within the context of studio-recorded pop music. I’ve been listening to my favorite 10 or so ELO songs on my iPod lately, and while marveling at how good Jeff Lynne‘s voice could be the rare times he let it be heard without obstruction by the aural shades that were layers of multi-tracking and studio effects I also began to marvel at how much emotion his music could inspire despite the fact that there’s hardly an ELO lyric that, taken at word value alone, means a damn to me.
I first began to think about this while enjoying maybe my third-favorite ELO song, “Strange Magic.” I’ve loved this song since middle school, but I can’t even tell what he’s singing in the chorus after he sings the title. From what I can make out in the verses, which seem to race by in time to enjoy the next musical variation on the chorus’ arrangement, I’m not missing much, but because Lynne so artfully buries his lack of lyrical content sacrificing his pleasing vocal timbre in the process, it never matters for me. It’s probably best that I fail to pay attention to his lyrics. Beside, it’s magic; why should I try to make sense of it?
Whenever “Telephone Line” comes on I can actually follow along with the lyrics and get something directly out of them. It’s no surprise that this is one of the few songs on which Lynne avoids overdoing the effects on his voice. He knows he’s got a direct sentiment to express. Beside that song, though—only a few days after listening to these songs and thinking about this stuff—I can barely think of a couplet in a verse in an ELO song that I give a damn about removed from the music! Other than “You’ve made a fool of me,” in the beginning of “Evil Woman,” I’d have to think long and hard about a line outside the chorus in any song by them, let alone one that means anything to me.
How about you? Do you have a favorite ELO lyric, even as small as a couplet or ad-libbed aside?
I wanna go with “Hold on tight to your dream,” because as a kid when it was used for those Coffee Achievers commercials, I thought Jeff was singing “Hold on tight to your drink.” I still like to think that’s how it should be.
Don’t bring me down…….BRUCE!
who the hell is Bruce?
Just about a month ago I FINALLY learned the story behind “Bruce.” I read about it in TapeOp magazine, in an interview with a German engineer known simply by “Mack.” It was an excellent interview – the guy worked closely with ELO and then Queen. Now here’s the bad news: I’ve already forgotten exactly what the story was, but in Googling the word quickly it may have had something to do with a German word that was a greeting and that would have been in Lynne’s mind as the band recorded that album with Mack in Munich. I think I still have the issue of TapeOp. I’ll see if I can pull it out and re-read that part.
In the same song…
“You’re lookin’ good just like a snake in the grass.
One of these days you’re gonna break your glass.”
Either Jeff Lynne was squeamish or he wanted to make sure his song got on the radio. The obvious rhyme would be “break your ass”. However, Blondie also removed “pain in the ass” from the radio edit of “Heart of Glass”, so Lynne was not alone.
“We didn’t break until the morning
One dramatic glance
Now it’s too late to want your freedom
It wasn’t my idea to dance”
Oh, wait, that’s a Move song, isn’t it? Oh well, the Move was always more interesting than ELO anyway.
OK, enough of attitude and being cantankerous. I’ll pick a real ELO lyric:
“Hello, Mr. Radio, you friendly station,
So glad of your company, your morning music,
My wife she ran away, she left our home,
And though you’re here with me, I’m on my own.”
And by the way, my favorite song in the who ELO catalog is “10538 Overture”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqgH3RNc1z4
I came across the lowdown about this a few months ago. Here’s the story from the Wiki entry on the song:
“A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts “Bruce!” However, according to liner notes, he is actually saying a made-up word “Grroosss”. This is similar to a German word for “greeting”, Gruß, possibly referring to the Austrian and Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott that the group would have heard while recording the album in Munich. However, after the song’s release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as “Bruce” that Jeff Lynne actually began to sing the word as “Bruce” for fun at live shows.”
It was that German engineer who mentioned to Lynne that his made-up word sounded like the German word.
Thank you! Good night!
It’s originally a Move song, but Lynne wrote it and ELO did it, I think the lyrics to “Do Ya” are about perfect. Over the top imagery set to a three-chord progression.
TB
So, you’re saying the song is not a shout out to The Boss to lighten up already?
Mod, as far as I can determine–and I think I’m right on this–the chorus of Strange Magic is as follows:
I get a Strange Magic
Oh what a
Strange Magic
Oh its a
Strange Magic
Got a
Strange Magic
Got a
Strange Magic
Right? Perhaps with minor variations through the song. Yet I really like the song.
Mod, I am not quite sure whether the question “what is your favorite ELO lyric” was meant to provoke a sarcastic response or a sincere one, so I will take both tacks.
“Favorite” lyric: “There’s a hole in my head where the rain comes in / You took my body and played to win” (Evil Woman)
Favorite lyric: Well, this is a bit of a problem, innit? Taking the approach that the best ELO lyrics are those that do the least damage, I would pick something like “So Fine” from A New World Record. A great song, anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38y59LjrMVM
Awesome!
OK, so I’m not missing something after “oh what a.” Thanks. I’ve always thought he mumbled something important.
In answer to your question, misterioso, “Yes” – to both perspectives. I know there are plenty of bubblegum and established acts with hit songs of emotional and even intellectual depth despite having lyrics of little substance or interest, but I don’t know that any band has been as successful at and consistent in this approach than ELO.
“Cranberry sauce.”
Strangest on to me – Rockaria
Just to hear the opera singer singin’ rock & roll so pure,
I thought I saw the mayor there but I wasn’t really sure
What???
My favorite is
Bank job in the city.
Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don’t envy me
from can’t Get It Out Of My Head
I’m on a big ELO kick recenty as well. I thelps that the Cds are $5 new at the local FYE (the remasters in fact)
Lynne definitely went with lyrics as just ways to get the melody out there for the most part during the post-Wood ELO years, which is probably a valid approach when you’ve got a voice like that and the size of the band is the hook, so long as the lyrics aren’t complete nonsense or offensively dumb to the point that you can’t ignore them. Generally, he avoided the latter.
That said, he did write considerably more out-there lyrics when he was in The Move in order to synch up with Roy Wood, and some of that carried over and occassionally showed up in story-based songs for ELO, mostly on the first two albums, but also on his two “concept” ELO albums, El Dorado and Time. Time is super dated, but both are about faces from what you’d think of a normal ELO lyric and more like his Move songs.
TB brings up “Do Ya”, which has that really weird interlude about how they come runnin’ “just to feel, to touch her long black hair, they don’t give a damn”. “Boy Blue” from El Dorado has a pretty similar lyrical mindset, with lyrics about being impaled and God pointing the finger of doom.
Jungleland mentioned the “Robin Hood, William Tell, Ivanhoe and Lancelot” line from Can’t Get It Out Of My Head (also on El Dorado), which I think is a genuinely good one and not just weird.
I also kinda like the uncharacteristically pretentious “Black machines that once were champions turn to dust under the sky” from Hello, My Old Friend, a b-side about the poor parts of England where all the factories have closed and not, as the lyric would imply, some kind of Dungeons and Dragons rule book.
Two simple ones that I think are pretty good:
“Now it’s getting late, for those who hesitate, got no one” from Waterfall.
“Fadin’ like the Beatles on Hey Jude” from Shangri-La
Curses! I bought them the day they came out (in waves) and paid full price. Alas. I should have waited.
I like when the evil record comapanies do reissues in waves (like Rhino did with the E.C. double sets) of about three at a time. It means I usually can buy them without the guilt of buying an entire catalogue.
The ELO ones were odd because they were on a roll with them, then they just stopped. The last of them finally creeped out, but i was way off schedule from the original plan. They were to also include the Jeff Lynne solo record Armchair Theatre. The only thing I lack is Xanadu. How awful is that? My ELO collection has a hole in it because I don’t own Xanadu? And I will buy it. The terrible lament of a record collector…poor pitiful me….
TB
I tried to find lyrics that resonated for me. Granted, I just listened to the new remixed Greatest Hits or whatever it is and don’t know much beyond the hits. When I was in AZ recently and was being driven around by my friend whose idea of good music was that album of didgeridoo/bagpipe tunes, we did agree on ELO which I purchased in one of the many strip malls out there. I like ELO and like you, Mod, have strong positive associations to the songs. (I still remember listening to Out of the Blue during a summer pool party.) But I have to admit that I never really focused on the lyrics. I suspect that they are much like one of my favorite contemporary bands, Beach House, who have a distinctive sound but when you really focus on the words you realize they are sort of dumb.
I don’t think lyrics were much more than a means to an end for Jeff. Not that that is a horrible thing, just that he writes them last and they have to fit the track that he has already created (or that’s what Bev said in his book at least)