I joined the ELO Fan Club and memorised their names and taught myself how to draw them all that’s how much I loved them. If you know Out Of The Blue, you’ll know The Whale, for instance, a haunting instrumental for cetacean lovers, and Birmingham Blues, a personal hymn to home: just two examples of the band’s versatility and voracity. Having self-consciously forsaken ELO in my teens, and found some new bands of my own, I rediscovered Jeff, Bev, Hugh, Kelly, Mik, Richard and Melvyn in young adult life when all bets were off again, and I found that I really appreciated the craft. Little wonder if stands up so well to the test of cover versions, my favourites being one by the Delgados, and of course Jim Bob’s mournful take, which he recorded for my Radio 4 sitcom of the same name, and which I will always cherish. It takes a certain chutzpah to illustrate the line “running down the avenue” with a panting sound – and indeed to link the songs in the Rainy Day concerto with what sound like BBC rain sound effects but which Lynne actually recorded in Munich.
ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA 1977 HIT FULL
From the clearly faked “radio announcement” and crude thump-thump-thump intro riff, through the cloudbursting joy of its verses (“don’t you know, it’s a beautiful new day, a-hey-hey”) and the punched-up chorus, they cook with gas for a full five minutes, using Vocoder and choral effects to tip a simple pop tune into sepulchral glory. Can you imagine how many times I’ll have heard it in the interim? (It used to be on Smooth 70s, for a while my default adult kitchen radio station, at least once a day.) It does not tarnish. I loved Mr Blue Sky then, when it became their seventh top 10 hit and I love it 45 years later. It was pop music played by rock musicians and a longhaired string section, wasn’t it? Nevertheless it electrified my 12-year-old ears and lit my fire. (I liked my Mum’s Elvis records, too.)ĮLO’s was pretty sophisticated symphonic rock – literally Dad rock, if you will – and a natural evolution from the asunder Beatles who’d enraptured Jeff Lynne’s generation so, but it wasn’t prog or metal, it wasn’t intellectual or visceral. I was being handed down my formative musical taste – and my first favourite band! – from a parent. (In the years hence, my younger brother Simon used to sneak into my bedroom to listen to my punk records when I was out.) I discovered ELO, and their classic sixth and seventh long-players A New World Record and Out Of The Blue, through my Dad. But if you’re the eldest, you’re the canary in the mineshaft, figuring it out for yourself. It’s inevitable that younger siblings absorb older music. As a consequence of having elders to follow, these second or third children developed a more “mature” taste in music, which for 70s boys generally meant progressive rock or heavy metal, and it meant LPs, not 45s. To generalise wildly, my recollection is that those with older sisters had a greater affinity for soul. I, meanwhile, could be found sitting cross-legged on the carpet of the family living room listening intently to the Concerto For A Rainy Day, which comprised Side Three of Out Of The Blue, a double LP whose generous gatefold sleeve, complete with lyrics, gave a 12-year-old something to get his head round while the lush, orchestral music flowed from the modest speakers attached to Mum and Dad’s “music centre”.Ĭrucially, I did not grow up with an older brother, as I was the eldest.
Description: single album track, Out Of The Blueġ977 was the year punk broke wide open: God Save The Queen, Damned Damned Damned, Sid replacing Glenn Matlock, The Clash, Oh Bondage! Up Yours, Blank Generation, Never Mind The Bollocks.
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