A Strange Magic
That I love music is a given. I grew up in a musical family; we sang, some of us could play instruments, and we listened to anything and everything. I started singing when I was seven or eight, following in family tradition.
As I grew up, I got exposed to a very wide variety of musical styles. Country, rock, pop, gospel, and even soul. Later, I would discover punk, new wave, alternative, jazz... I could go on. It was all good.
When I was nine years old, my sister had a tape recorder, one of the smaller reel to reel models. I discovered it one day and sang into it; my version of the Beatles "Nowhere Man". My sister Lynn found it and thought it was the greatest thing and shared it with her friends. The sudden gush of attention actually caused me to panic, and I couldn't do anything like that again for a very long time. Years, in fact.
It turned out that I was very much an Anglophile when it came to my evolving tastes. There were a number of English bands that I loved as a child, and sang along with in my private spaces lest I be discovered. I thought the Marmalade's hit "Reflections of My Life" was a thing of beauty, anything by the ex-Beatles magnificent, and even the Rolling Stones had me with "Angie".
But it was my discovery of a Birmingham based band in late 1974 that really changed my life. The local FM pop-rock station Y-103 was playing a number of songs by British and Australian artists one night. The DJ was having a great time taunting the listeners, playing Olivia Newton John's "I Honestly Love You" every other song; this is no joke, he'd say "let's hear that again, shall we?" and yet again, the song would play, many times just a bar or two. He had just finished one of those partial Olivia segments and had just played Elton John and John Lennon's duet, "What Ever Gets You Through The Night" when he played a song that started off with stirring strings and a soft piano, followed by a rather British voice. The chorus stuck with me; "Can't Get It Out Of My Head". The band was the Electric Light Orchestra.
And I thought it was great. What a song!
The problem was it just didn't get a lot of air play locally. I wouldn't hear from the band for most of 1975, soon forgetting the name of the band. That changed in the fall of 1975 and the release of "Evil Woman". From that point on, I was a fan.
It's not that ELO was great. Certainly, Jeff Lynne knows how to cater to an audience, and his music was aimed at the US market with precision. It wasn't as progressive as, say, Yes or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. But for this young teenager, who was blithely optimistic, it was wonderful. The sweeping strings, Jeff's vocals, Bev Bevan's rocking percussion, it was all very powerful.
The first ELO album I owned was "A New World Record", which I got almost two and half years after it came out (I didn't really become interested in buying music until I was fifteen; I may have loved music, but I loved my bicycle and other hobbies more). I say album, it was actually a cassette, one which I played to the point where the iron oxide was wearing off in places. I listened to this cassette in my rather expensive handheld GE tape recorder, which many times was strapped precariously to the handle bars of my Schwinn 10-speed as I peddled to the rhythm of the songs. There were other albums I wanted, namely "Out Of The Blue", which many consider ELO's magnum opus.
I would eventually get them all, except for the first three, which, to be honest, just didn't work for me. The albums (and that's what they would eventually be, genuine vinyl) that would mean the most to me were those two, "A New World Record" and "Out Of The Blue". The music, the lyrics, the... optimism.
For me, that's what it was all about. Jeff Lynne may have written some bittersweet and occasionally dark songs, but there is something very comforting about the music of ELO to me. When I first discovered ELO, I was convinced that the future would be very bright; we made it to the Moon in 1969, we'd probably have moonbases by 2000, there would be a whole fleet of space shuttles, every home would have computers and the world would be beautiful. When I listen to "Out Of The Blue", I'm not reminded of late 1977 or early 1978, when the album came out, but instead of 1981, the year I graduated and was fortunate enough to finally get the album. That was a halcyon year for me, and that album symbolizes all the foolishly optimistic dreams I had.
It's comfort food for my soul.
ELO would lead me to discover the Alan Parsons Project, Roxy Music, Genesis, the Moody Blues, and many new wave bands. All somewhat darker, moodier. I love it all, but for me, when I'm depressed or low, one thing will surely bring a smile to my face; thanks Jeff.
As I grew up, I got exposed to a very wide variety of musical styles. Country, rock, pop, gospel, and even soul. Later, I would discover punk, new wave, alternative, jazz... I could go on. It was all good.
When I was nine years old, my sister had a tape recorder, one of the smaller reel to reel models. I discovered it one day and sang into it; my version of the Beatles "Nowhere Man". My sister Lynn found it and thought it was the greatest thing and shared it with her friends. The sudden gush of attention actually caused me to panic, and I couldn't do anything like that again for a very long time. Years, in fact.
It turned out that I was very much an Anglophile when it came to my evolving tastes. There were a number of English bands that I loved as a child, and sang along with in my private spaces lest I be discovered. I thought the Marmalade's hit "Reflections of My Life" was a thing of beauty, anything by the ex-Beatles magnificent, and even the Rolling Stones had me with "Angie".
But it was my discovery of a Birmingham based band in late 1974 that really changed my life. The local FM pop-rock station Y-103 was playing a number of songs by British and Australian artists one night. The DJ was having a great time taunting the listeners, playing Olivia Newton John's "I Honestly Love You" every other song; this is no joke, he'd say "let's hear that again, shall we?" and yet again, the song would play, many times just a bar or two. He had just finished one of those partial Olivia segments and had just played Elton John and John Lennon's duet, "What Ever Gets You Through The Night" when he played a song that started off with stirring strings and a soft piano, followed by a rather British voice. The chorus stuck with me; "Can't Get It Out Of My Head". The band was the Electric Light Orchestra.
And I thought it was great. What a song!
The problem was it just didn't get a lot of air play locally. I wouldn't hear from the band for most of 1975, soon forgetting the name of the band. That changed in the fall of 1975 and the release of "Evil Woman". From that point on, I was a fan.
It's not that ELO was great. Certainly, Jeff Lynne knows how to cater to an audience, and his music was aimed at the US market with precision. It wasn't as progressive as, say, Yes or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. But for this young teenager, who was blithely optimistic, it was wonderful. The sweeping strings, Jeff's vocals, Bev Bevan's rocking percussion, it was all very powerful.
The first ELO album I owned was "A New World Record", which I got almost two and half years after it came out (I didn't really become interested in buying music until I was fifteen; I may have loved music, but I loved my bicycle and other hobbies more). I say album, it was actually a cassette, one which I played to the point where the iron oxide was wearing off in places. I listened to this cassette in my rather expensive handheld GE tape recorder, which many times was strapped precariously to the handle bars of my Schwinn 10-speed as I peddled to the rhythm of the songs. There were other albums I wanted, namely "Out Of The Blue", which many consider ELO's magnum opus.
I would eventually get them all, except for the first three, which, to be honest, just didn't work for me. The albums (and that's what they would eventually be, genuine vinyl) that would mean the most to me were those two, "A New World Record" and "Out Of The Blue". The music, the lyrics, the... optimism.
For me, that's what it was all about. Jeff Lynne may have written some bittersweet and occasionally dark songs, but there is something very comforting about the music of ELO to me. When I first discovered ELO, I was convinced that the future would be very bright; we made it to the Moon in 1969, we'd probably have moonbases by 2000, there would be a whole fleet of space shuttles, every home would have computers and the world would be beautiful. When I listen to "Out Of The Blue", I'm not reminded of late 1977 or early 1978, when the album came out, but instead of 1981, the year I graduated and was fortunate enough to finally get the album. That was a halcyon year for me, and that album symbolizes all the foolishly optimistic dreams I had.
It's comfort food for my soul.
ELO would lead me to discover the Alan Parsons Project, Roxy Music, Genesis, the Moody Blues, and many new wave bands. All somewhat darker, moodier. I love it all, but for me, when I'm depressed or low, one thing will surely bring a smile to my face; thanks Jeff.
posted by RRLittle at 5:43 PM
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