1. Electric Light Orchestra--Out of the Blue
#1: Electric Light Orchestra--Out of the Blue (1977)
Top-Notch Tracks: "Mr. Blue Sky," [HJ200 #14,] "Jungle," [HJ200 #111,] "Wild West Hero," [HJ200 #119,] "Sweet Talkin' Woman," [HJ200 #144,] "Night In the City," [HJ200 shoulda been,] "Believe Me Now/Steppin' Out," [HJ200 shoulda been,] "Turn To Stone," [HJ200 shoulda been,] "Sweet Is the Night," [HJ200 shoulda been,] "It's Over," "Across the Border," "Standin' In the Rain," "Big Wheels," "Summer and Lightning," "Birmingham Blues"
Album Depth: "The Whale," "Starlight"
Weak Links:
Stand-Out Lyrics: "Hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race!"--"Mr. Blue Sky"
"Running down the avenue, see how the sun shines brightly in the city. All the streets where once was pity, Mr. Blue Sky is living here today."--"Mr. Blue Sky"
"Sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight. It's stopped raining."--"Mr. Blue Sky"
"Mr. Blue, you did it right, but soon comes Mr. Night, creepin' over. Now his hand is on your shoulder. Nevermind, I'll remember you this, I'll remember you this way."--"Mr. Blue Sky"
"Wondrous is that great blue ship that sails around the mighty sun! And joy to everyone that rides along!"--"Jungle"
"I was standing in the jungle, I was feeling alright. I was wandering in the darkness in the middle of the night. The moon began to shine, I saw a clearing ahead. But, what's there going on, I think I'm out of my head."--"Jungle"
"I stood and stared for quite a while, then a lion sang to me and he smiled, 'Come and join us if you so desire.'"--"Jungle"
"Pretty soon I knew the tune, and we sat and sang under the moon. And the jungle rang in perfect harmony."--"Jungle"
"Ride the range all the day, 'til the first fading light. Be with my western girl 'round the fire, oh so bright. I'd be the Indians' friend, let them live to be free. Riding into the sunset, I wish I could be."--"Wild West Hero"
"I'd ride the desert sands, and through the prairie lands, trying to do what's right.. The folks would come to me, they'd say, 'We need you hear,' and I'd stay there for the night."--"Wild West Hero"
"I was searchin' (searchin') on a one way street. I was hopin' (hopin') for a chance to meet. I was waiting for the operator on the line."--"Sweet Talkin' Woman"
"Communication breakdown all around."--"Sweet Talkin' Woman"
"I've been livin' (livin') on a dead end street. I've been askin' (askin' kindly) everybody I meet, with insufficient data comin' through."--"Sweet Talkin' Woman"
"Standing at the airport, looking down the strip. She was drying her eyes, she was biting her lip. 747 just left from Gate 11. Now there's no turning 'round, cause it's just leaving the ground, and getting higher. Higher!"--"Night In the City"
"Standing at the dock side, looking out to sea when I saw her but she did not see me."--"Night In the City"
"I was running kinda lonely at the city place. I waited for an hour, I never saw her face."--"Night In the City"
"Pack up all your things, we're gonna be leaving. Sooner than I thought. Pack the things you bought. Clouds are gathering."--"Believe Me Now/Steppin' Out"
"Then I saw your face, and heard the song that you were singing. Though I thought I knew the words, the tune was quite absurd, and out of key. Ooo, dah, dah, dee."--"Believe Me Now/Steppin' Out"
"The city streets are empty now. The lights don't shine no more."--"Turn To Stone"
"The dancing shadows on the wall. The two-step in the hall. Are all I see since you've been gone. Turning, turning. Through all I sit here and I wait. I turn to stone. I turn to stone. You will return again some day, to my blue world."--"Turn To Stone"
"Yes I'm turning to stone 'cause you ain't coming home why ain't you coming home if I'm turning to stone you've been gone for so long and I can't carry on yes I'm turning I'm turning I'm turning to stone."--"Turn To Stone"
"Well, you start to sway. Check your Cartier, 'cause it's getting late. You can't afford to wait. So you move along where it's going on, and the people of the night are playing 'til the dawn."--"Sweet Is the Night"
"And the sun that shines paints a trace of sadness in your eyes that cry. Wishing and hoping."--"Sweet Is the Night"
"Well, you did your thing and you lost your wings. And it hurt so bad, you lost everything."--"Sweet Is the Night"
"Summer came and passed away. Hardly seemed to last a day, but it's over. And what can I do?"--"It's Over"
"Looking from this distant shore. Distant shore. Sun ain't coming by no more, 'cause it's over. It is over. And what can I do?"--"It's Over"
"You know I got to make the deadline. I gotta get that southbound train tonight. Uh-ooo. If I don't get to the border, then I'll write."--"Across the Border"
"I'm standing in the rain. I'm waiting all alone. I'm so tired. I wanna go home."--"Standin' In the Rain"
"I'm standing in the rain. Getting soaking wet. I'm doing my best, but what do I get?"--"Standin' In the Rain"
"I tried my best, all I could do, but somehow it was not enough for you."--"Big Wheels"
"I remember the dead of night. A lonely light that shines upon the window. I see it all so clear: the tenderness, the silent tears."--"Big Wheels"
"I could reach out, and touch you. What can I do? The sun ain't shining."--"Summer and Lightning"
"Been across the ocean to the south sea isles. Yeah, I've travelled to the east and west for miles and miles and miles. And I've been long gone. Boy, I got them Birmingham blues."--"Birmingham Blues"
"I'll go and stay a while, and all the folks I meet, they'll say, 'You won't stay long, you've got them traveling feet. You'll soon be long gone. Boy, you got the rest of the world blues.'"--"Birmingham Blues"
"Aaaarrrrooooooo?"--"The Whale"
Album cover: 15 out of 10. It's the spaceship, damnit!!! Look at that spaceship! It's fantastic and phenomenal! It is the coolest spaceship ever designed! Just look at it! The juke box motif is perfect. The red, yellow, and blue colors are so vibrant. And the little touches are so cool. There's the jet coming into the hangar bay. There's the little windowed tape deck looking section just inside of the blue hangar bay doors. There's the astronauts working on the unfinished section. There's the windowed circle just outside of the big cursive letters, giving you a peak into bridge of the ship.
The inner sleeve is pretty cool, too, though not quite as cool as the outside of the ship.
The spaceship was designed by the artist known as Kosh. (He also designed the covers for albums such as "Abbey Road" by the Beatles and "Hi Infidelity" by REO Speedwagon, among many others.) The artwork for this album cover was by Shusei Nagaoka.
As a kid, I had a poster of this album cover on my wall. As an adult, I would like a poster of this album cover on my wall, but I don't think my wife would agree.
Comments: It's a double album. Is that cheating? It kind of feels like it's cheating. At the end of my post for Billy Joel's "Glass Houses," I said it was quite possibly the greatest single album ever. And I still think that. But, "Out of the Blue" is my favorite album ever, in part because it is two albums worth of out of this world music.
One of the things I like about "Out of the Blue" is how it straddles the line between the big, blockbuster hits and the obscure little songs that nobody else but me knows about. (Or at least that's how it seems to me.) Everyone knows "Turn To Stone," "Sweet Talkin' Woman," and "Mr. Blue Sky," but no one ever plays "Jungle," or "Wild West Hero," or "Night In the City."
Of course, it was one of ELO's best selling albums, which is how it came to be one of the first three 8-tracks in my brother's music collection, along with "News of the World" and "A New World Record." (I've mentioned my brother's influence on my musical tastes frequently, but not my sister's. There's a reason for that. My memories of her music collection were mostly limited to Barry Manilow, K-Tel, and one particular John Travolta album where he posed shirtless on the back cover. Except for a few songs from the K-Tel records, most of her stuff didn't make my long-term lists.)
The legend is that Jeff Lynne wrote almost all of the album while staying in a chalet in the Swiss Alps. I've often wondered what I'd be able to create if I was able to spend a few weeks in a Swiss Alps rented chalet. (Probably a lot of Swiss cheese farts.) But, for Jeff Lynne, it was enough songs to fill a double album. Two albums equals four sides, and each side of this album is its own little masterpiece. Let's break it down:
Side 1: "Turn To Stone," "It's Over," "Sweet Talkin' Woman," "Across the Border"
The album starts off with the rumbling, grinding rock of "Turn To Stone." I love the great call and answer singing of Jeff Lynne and Kelly Groucutt, but the highlight of the song is the super-fast talking section. There's a reason this song was a hit.
"It's Over" was the fourth and final song from the album to be released as a single in the USA, but it didn't get a lot of airplay. Much like "Don't Ask My Why," it's a really great album cut, but there are many other songs from the album that I like better.
"Sweet Talkin' Woman" is another call and answer song, and a bit of a preview of the disco groove to come on the "Discovery" album.
And then, there were horns! Yes, that's right, horns on an ELO song! If you've ever wondered what Jeff Lynne would sound like as the leader of a mariachi band, here's your best chance. (Hey, it's not too bad!)
Side 2: "Night In the City," "Starlight," "Jungle," "Believe Me Now/Steppin' Out"
The order of the songs on the vinyl and cd versions are slightly different than the 8-track version I first listened to. On the 8-track, "Night In the City" was spread out over two tracks, with a "ka-chunk" in the middle of it. Or so I thought. It turns out they just started the song, played it up to the "ka-chunk" of the change in tracks, then just started the song over again. I always thought it was weird that the song started over again right in the middle of the song. 8-tracks were weird. It's a great song with a healthy dose of desperation and cowbell.
"Starlight" is, by far, my least favorite song on the album. That doesn't mean it's a bad song, just that it's not a song that moves me in any way.
"Jungle" is a fun story song. It's easy to picture a bunch of animals dancing around and asking Jeff Lynne to join them in a song about the "great blue ship that sails around the mighty sun." And the little alarm clock ringing at the end to clarify that it's all a dream is a nice touch.
Although they're listed as two different tracks, I've always considered "Believe Me Now" and "Steppin' Out" to be two parts of one complete song, with the mostly instrumental "Believe Me Now" being a nice introduction to the flying-floating magic of "Steppin' Out." I've always enjoyed singing along to this song, especially the "tune was quite absurd and out of key" part, because I feel it gives me license to be off-tune. (Which I often am.)
Side 3: Concerto for a Rainy Day: "Standin' In the Rain," "Big Wheels," "Summer and Lightning," "Mr. Blue Sky"
This whole four-song suite flows together nicely for a rainy day listen. "Standin' In the Rain" starts things off with a powerful thunderstorm of a song. "Big Wheels" is the depressed sound from the part of the storm where it seems the rain will never end. In "Summer and Lightning," things are starting to look up again. And then, there's the grand finale of the beautiful blue sky day. If you can listen to "Mr. Blue Sky" without a smile on your face or a bounce in your step, you might be dead.
Side 4: "Sweet Is the Night," "The Whale," "Birmingham Blues," "Wild West Hero"
"Sweet Is the Night" hits an interesting spot, it feels like a ballad, but it's slightly more uptempo than most ballads. It's kind of close to a flying-floating song, but not quite. Whatever it ends up being, I like to sway to it.
Remember the Save the Whales trend? Star Trek IV was the culmination, but "The Whale" was right at the heart of the movement. It's not the most dynamic song, but it's fun as a put-it-on-in-the-background-and-do-your-homework kind of thing.
"Birmingham Blues" feels different than all the other songs on the album. It's a little bluesy. Most of the song is about how Jeff Lynne is missing his hometown. But then some of his townmates tell him, "Boy, you got the rest of the world blues." It makes me think about how much I love Arimo, but if I were to go back there and stay for very long, I'd probably be itching to get the spam out of dodge.
And speaking of the wild west, I was surprised to learn that "Wild West Hero" was released as a single in the UK, but not in the US. (A similar thing happened with "The Diary of Horace Wimp." Did they think folks in the US were too discerning to like great songs?) It's a silly song, but fun, and I really like the two musical inerludes in the middle, one a jamming guitar, and the other a some ragtime piano.
So, yes, it might be cheating that this double album scores the #1 spot on my favorite albums list, but I think if I were to take each album separately, they would both undoubtedly be in my Top 10. So many of these songs are imprinted in my mind. It's simply the best Electric Light Orchestra album, and the Electric Light Orchestra is my favorite group, so it's got to be my favorite album, right?
This has been a very fun experience, and I'm glad I've been able to share my favorite albums with you, and discover some of your favorite albums, too. Thanks for playing along at home.
I've made this my get-ready-in-the-morning album for over a month now, and I have to say that I agree with almost everything you said about how awesome it is. Almost. There is one thing in your album write up that I think I may be able to talk you out of--the idea that "Starlight" is your least favorite song. "Starlight" is deserving of a much higher placement on your ranking of the songs for several reasons. First, it's a dreamy, floaty, feely song with a frickin' THEREMIN in it! When it's played right--with a light touch and not too warbly, as it is played in this song--you can't get a more floaty-feely instrument than a theremin. Second, if you love the spaceship on the front cover, as you profess to do, then I ask, what other song on this album would you want to listen to more as you pilot said spaceship through the galaxy? Okay, maybe "Mr. Blue Sky," as it was used in the opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so it's definitely a traveling-through-space kind of song. But as I listened to "Starlight" repeatedly, I couldn't get the image out of my mind of what it would be like to fly the ELO spaceship around the galaxy to see all of the fantastic views of planets, moons, comets, nebulas, stars, etc. I also remembered those days of my youth in Arimo when I used to sit at night on the big wooden fence by the barn--the one with a long six-inch round log on the top--and stare at the stars in the sky and the Arimo city lights and think about all the girls I had crushes on that didn't want to have anything to do with me. So what song should be your least favorite? Well, that's up to you, but I suggest "Birmingham Blues" as a possible candidate. Jeff's singing about an English town, but he samples a bit from George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"--one of the most "American" songs ever written--throughout the song. Yes, "Birmingham Blues" is still a good song, but that somewhat jarring use of an American song in the middle of a tribute to Birmingham seems a bit out of place to me. But the rest of the songs on this album are pretty flawless. And although I knew the hit songs from the album pretty well already, I found great joy in listening to the other songs--especially "Jungle," "Night in the City," "Big Wheels," and the exquisite mostly-instrumental "The Whale," which would also be an excellent space-faring song. Of course, my favorite song on this album is "Mr. Blue Sky." It's still one of the few songs I can hear on the radio that makes me feel so joyful that I can get choked up as I sing along to it. That song alone would make this album one of my favorite ELO albums, but when you put the whole package together--the other hit songs, the other excellent non-hit songs, and that beautiful cover--Out of the Blue is definitely my favorite ELO album now.
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