I listened to Electric Light Orchestra’s All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra early this morning, and I discovered something interesting.
I already wrote a post about how Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” probably inspired Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” as far as the catalogue of places, and I think ELO’s “All Over the World” takes it a step further.
"Sweet Little Sixteen" lists a bunch of cities in the United States, and "All Over the World" expands this and lists a bunch of international cities. Where "Sweet Little Sixteen" includes places like Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and New Orleans, "All Over the World" includes places like Detroit, LA, London, Hamburg, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, and Monte Carlo. (There are others, but I can’t quite make them out.)
I considered the possibility that this was just a coincidence, but there are links between Chuck Berry and ELO. ELO covered Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and mention him by name in “Rockaria!” So I’m fairly certain that the catalogue of places in “All Over the World” is a conscious expansion of what Chuck Berry did in “Sweet Little Sixteen.”
I think there are a fair amount of other references in ELO’s work - both to other musicians (they quote Beethoven in both “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rockaria!”) and to themselves. But I feel that that’s something I should spend some concentrated effort on before I write a post about it.
