Electric Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue

This morning I listened to Electric Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue.  Last March I started a project where I look into ELO's music specifically (which I started because of this project, actually), and I've already written a fair amount about Out of the Blue there, but I noticed some more things this morning.

"Starlight"

I've had this album for years (it was actually the first original ELO album I got), but it wasn't until this morning that I deciphered the line "You've gotta stop" in "Starlight."  Had I noticed that sooner, I probably would have understood long ago that there's a musical/lyrical connection there.  After "You've gotta stop," the music stops before the lyric continues with "Foolin' around."

"Big Wheels"

There's a musical connection between "Big Wheels" and "Steppin' Out."  After some measures of tied whole notes, the bass part in "Steppin' Out" has this figure:

(click here for a larger image)

I use the MIDI component of my digital audio workstation to make these examples of notation, and where I would have tied a half note and a dotted quarter note, it put two dots on a half note.  I guess it ends up with the same value, but I haven't seen double-dotted notes anywhere else.

When the bass part finally starts in "Big Wheels," every other measure has the same rhythm as that in the bass part in "Steppin' Out."  The phrase also alternates between fourths, although here it's a semi-tone higher:

(click here for a larger image)

"Birmingham Blues"

Near the beginning, there's the line "Yeah, I've been rollin' like a stone," which recalls "Like a rollin' stone" in "Steppin' Out."

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Both of those last two things make the album more coherent.

Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record

Yester-day I listened to Electric Light Orchestra's A New World Record, and I noticed something about the string parts in a couple songs.  Aside from the key, the same string part is in "So Fine" and "Livin' Thing."  I guessed on the keys based on the notes in the parts themselves, but here they are in notation (with the disclaimer that I might be wrong; notation still isn't my strong point).

"So Fine"

"Livin' Thing"

Having what is virtually the same part in two songs (which are back-to-back in the track listing) helps give the album a greater consistency.

Electric Light Orchestra's "Livin' Thing"

I'm halfway through a compilation album of Electric Light Orchestra (All over the World: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra).  After a post I wrote here two years ago (after listening to this same album), I started a project where I look into ELO's music in some depth (I haven't gotten that far yet), so I've been transcribing these too.

I noticed the line "Takin' a dive 'cause you can help but slide, floating downstream" in "Livin' Thing," and I think it's a small lyrical reference to the Beatles.  The "floating downstream" part is very similar to the first line of "Tomorrow Never Knows" - "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream."  In my project, I've found more than a few references to the Beatles, so I'm more confident that this is a reference rather than just a coincidental resemblance.

The Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers

I just listened to the Byrds' The Notorious Byrd Brothers.  I feel kind of dumb for not noticing this before (or at least I don't remember noticing it before), but they sneak "Taps" in at the very end of "Draft Morning."  It makes sense, as the whole song is about the draft (the song is in opposition to it) and "Taps" is what's played at military funerals.

There's some interesting vocal effects on "Get to You."  Near the end there's a repeated phrase consisting of a sharp intake of air followed by two exhalations.  The intake is like that on the Beatles' "Girl" from Rubber Soul, and the exhalation isn't too dissimilar from that on the Zombies' "Time of the Season."  I don't know if it's the case here, but the Beatles certainly influenced the Byrds in other areas, so it's possible that they got that effect from "Girl."  I'm not so sure that there's any connection with "Time of the Season" though, as The Notorious Byrd Brothers came out on 3 January 1968, and "Time of the Season" wasn't released until April 1968.  So the use of that effect around the same time is probably just coincidental.

An-other interesting similarity that's probably just coincidental is that they used the Moog (or at least I think it's the Moog) for nautical effects on "Dolphin's Smile," and almost a decade later (in 1977), Electric Light Orchestra did the same thing for "The Whale" on Out of the Blue.

Roy Orbison's "California Blue"

I'm currently listening to Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl.  I starting wondering about the writers for "California Blue," so I looked up the publication data.  Unsurprisingly, "California Blue" was co-written by Jeff Lynne (along with Roy Orbison himself and Tom Petty).  Lynne also produced some of the tracks on Mystery Girl (including "California Blue"), and co-produced the Traveling Wilburys album that Orbison was involved with.

His co-writing this song is unsurprising because a lot of Lynne's songs with Electric Light Orchestra have the word blue in them - "Bluebird is Dead" from On the Third Day, "Boy Blue" from Eldorado, "Mr. Blue Sky" from Out of the Blue, "Midnight Blue" from Discovery, and "Bluebird" from Secret Messages.  In the liner notes for Discovery, he says, "I've lost count of the songs I've written with the word blue in the title.  I just love the word blue."

So it's interesting that, knowing Lynne's preference for the word and the working relationship that Orbison and Lynne had, you can tell that Lynne had a hand in writing the song just by that one word.

Electric Light Orchestra's "All Over the World"

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.