18. Electric Light Orchestra--Eldorado

 #18: Electric Light Orchestra--Eldorado (1974)

Top-Notch Tracks: "Eldorado/Eldorado Finale" [HJ200 #2], "Eldorado Overture/Can't Get It Out of My Head," [HJ200 #40], "Mister Kingdom," [HJ200 #53]

Album Depth: "Laredo Tornado," "Poor Boy (The Greenwood,)" "Boy Blue," "Illusions in G Major," 

Weak Links: "Nobody's Child"

Stand-Out Lyrics: "Sitting here on top of everywhere, what do I care?"--"Eldorado"

"Bank job in the city. Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me."--"Can't Get It Out of My Head"

"Oh, to sleep, perchance to dream, to live again those joyous scenes--the laughter and the follies that are locked inside my head."--"Mister Kingdom"

"The dreamer, the unwoken fool. In dreams no pain will kiss the brow."--"Eldorado Overture"

"So my friends who are gathered here today, hear this clear, for I'll not further say, that no man shall cause me to take up arms again."--"Boy Blue"

"Sweet Maid Marion, don't you do me no wrong. Stay on the right side, the Greenwood is your home."--"Poor Boy (The Greenwood)"

"Looking from this empty room, the corridors of endless gloom go crawling through the night to meet the dawn that's on its way."--"Mister Kingdom"

"What can you do when your dream world is gone, and your friends and lovers, too."--"Laredo Tornado"

"I have fought in the holiest wars. I have smashed some of the holiest jaws. I've been jailed, been impaled, and been dragged through the world."--"Boy Blue"

"Breakdown on the shoreline. Can't move, it's an ebb tide."--"Can't Get It Out of My Head"

"I can dream of flying high above the city's cares, and never be afraid of anyone, 'cause there ain't no one there."--"Mister Kingdom"

Electric Light Orchestra--Eldorado


Album cover: 10 of 10. Yes, it's an image from The Wizard of Oz. It's colorful, dynamic, and it fits the album perfectly. And, in the latest edition of "Things I Learned From the Interwebs," I just found out that this image was chosen as the album cover by none other than Sharon Osbourne! Apparently, her father Don Arden, was ELO's manager, and she worked for her father and helped manage the band. I had no idea! (Here's a link to an article where I learned this information. ELO: Pissing In Buckets. One of my favorite nuggets is that Sharon found the band quite boring because "all they wanted to do was sit in their rooms doing their knitting.") Apparently, the band wasn't very familiar with The Wizard of Oz, and didn't really care for the album cover. Thanks, Sharon!

Comments: This album is really buoyed up by the three tentpole songs: "Eldorado Overture/Can't Get It Out of My Head" at the beginning, "Mister Kingdom" in the middle, and "Eldorado/Eldorado Finale" at the end. All three of these songs are firmly entrenched in my Top 60 songs of all time (at #40, #53, and #2, respectively.) The orchestral and symphonic sounds of these three songs make me want to soar through the sky whenever I hear them. They are exquisite! (Although, it has come to my attention in recent years that "Mister Kingdom" may be a bit derivative. Its verses sound a little too similar to parts of "Across the Universe" by the Beatles.) (Imagine that: Jeff Lynne trying to sound like the Beatles? Shocking, I know!)

The other songs on the album are mostly good, just not on the level of the three tentpoles. (The exception being "Nobody's Child," with its repeated longings for the "painted ladies.") "Boy Blue" is a nice little anti-war riff with a bit of a medieval feel, while "Poor Boy (The Greenwood)" stays in that same time period with a jaunty ode to Robin Hood. "Laredo Tornado" is a totally different cat, with some whiny (in a good way) guitar and swirling chorus. I've never really known what to make of "Illusions In G Major," other than that it's a short, rocking tune that gives way nicely at the end to the album's final song, "Eldorado."

This was ELO's fourth album, and the one that really started to get them attention with the US listening public. Of course, when it came out in 1974, I was just eight years old and dreamy orchestral music wasn't quite my thing yet. This was a go-back album. Go-back albums are when you find that you like a group or an artist so much that you feel compelled to go back and listen to (or read, if the artist is an author) everything they ever put out. Sometimes the go-backs can be quite disappointing; other times, the go-backs might be even better than the thing that inspired you to go back.

I'm not sure when I went back to listen to "Eldorado." It was most probably some time between "Discovery" in 1979 and "Time" in 1981. 

"Eldorado" is an excellent go-back album.


Up next: Barracuda!!! 


Comments

  1. darenolsonNovember 16, 2021 at 11:42 AM

    I was afraid this was going to happen. In fact, I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't think it was going to happen with an ELO album. But it happened. And there's nothing I can do about it.

    So what was I afraid of happening? I was afraid that as we entered Top-20 territory that you would include an album from the 70s and 80s that was so good that I would be genuinely pissed that I had not included it in the albums that I had purchased as a young man so that I could repeatedly enjoy it for all the decades that followed. And Eldorado is such an album. I have always liked "Can't Get It Out of My Head," and I'm even familiar with "Boy Blue." But I wasn't familiar with any of the other songs on the album. And hearing all the songs in order in one album in one sitting nearly blew off the back of my skull. And the thought that went through my nearly blown-up brain at the end of the album was simply this--"Dammit! This would have made an awesome Dave Edmunds mood album! Why didn't I get this album back in the '70s?! I've missed listening to it all these years! Dammit! Dammit! DAMMIT!"

    And I can't get that thought out of my head. Now my old world is gone for dead, 'cause I can't get it out of my head, no, no, no, no.

    Nardo

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