Random Record Revisited

Eldorado – Electric Light Orchestra [1974]

   ELO was the first band I found on my own. It was 1977, we had recently moved to Texas and the sad Telephone Line was all over the radio. For Christmas I asked for Out Of the Blue. This was [sort of] an error on my part – I had seen this at the record store [probably the Musicland in the Forum Mall] and I has ass-u-me-ed this hit single was on that record. Of course I was a bit disappointed that me recent favorite wasn’t on this record but it was chock full of great songs thorough all four sides [admittedly I lost interest at the end of side 2 [Believe Me Now and Steppin’ Out] but boy the Concerto For A Rainy Day on side 3 [Standin’ In the Rain / Big Wheels / Summer And Lightning / Mr. Blue Sky] – just wow! And two new great singles with Turn To Stone and Sweet Talkin’ Woman. And A New World Record would soon be in the collection – although I seem to recall being grounded when I got it for my birthday so I had to wait some time before I finally got to enjoy it.

   The next ELO in the collection was the compilation of pre World Record songs, Ole ELO. This album allowed me to connect Jeff Lynne and company to some songs I was familiar with from the radio – Showdown, Can’t Get It Out Of My Head, Strange Magic and Evil Woman. But for some reason I never went back into the 1972 – 1975 catalog until Fry’s was selling off their CDs for $ 5.00 apiece. But I didn’t follow the band after 1981’s Time either.

   One of the CDs I picked up was 1974’s Eldorado. Which I played while sitting here playing poker on line. I played On the Third Day [1973] too but I found Eldorado more interesting. So I’ll explain why.

   In 1974, ELO was a band in transition. Not yet the pop leaning hit machine they would be in the later 70s, they are also no longer the experimental - progressive band Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan created out of the ashes of the Move back in 1971. The songs were beginning to tighten up and song lengths were coming down. [Everything on ELO II was clocking in at a 7-minute minimum like a fucking Yes album! I might find ELO more listenable than Yes but not that much – it has only been spun through a couple of times.]  With the incredibly talented but equally eccentric Roy Wood gone [to form the short lived Wizzard] On the Third Day found Jeff Lynne as the sole songwriter. The album still leans heavily on the Orchestra part of the band’s name but the stand alone single [which was added to the US release of the album at the last minute] Showdown made some noise [# 12 in the UK, # 53 in the US].

   Lynne continued streamlining the sound a bit and channeling his inner Beatle for Eldorado. It is supposed to be a concept album [“The plot follows a Walter Mitty-like character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams, to escape the disillusionment of his mundane reality.“ Isn’t that why we all listen to music?!?] but I haven’t gone deep into the lyrics or old interviews to confirm, that for myself. Four of the songs still clock in over 5 minutes but they don’t get repetitive or meandering [read: boring] and it’s not Rock by Math. I listened to this album several times [at least 4 full passes] over the 3 days it took me to get this “on paper” and at no point was I bored with it, it didn’t feel like a chore to listen.

   The album kicks off with the sound of violins and twinkles [like in the cartoons when someone goes from awake to dreaming], a spoken poem ala the Moody Blues though this is heavily reverbed and not entirely clear and a minute of orchestration [the Overture] featuring manic strings and the orchestra crashing asunder – like something might here as the hero chases down the bad guy and finally gets a kiss from the girl as the end of a silent movie. This is the first appearance of the orchestration [full orchestra not just the three players associated with the band] and choir arrangements by Lynne, keyboardist Richard Tandy and arranger Louis Clark which will be all over the next 3 or 4 albums. These wind down to a soft dreamy sound that brings in a simple piano and leads into ELO’s first US top 10 song – Can’t Get It Out Of My Head.

   If Wood and Lynne’s original concept of the Electric Light Orchestra was to pick up where the Beatles left off with I Am the Walrus, then this song hits that mark. The lyrics hold some of the dreamy quality of Lennon [think Julia] even if the arrangement has the things Paul McCartney hated on Phil Spector’s mix of Let It Be. Kudos here to Bev Bevan on the tubs. Bevan enters here and plays very Ringo like – straight and spare and just what the song needs. In fact, Bevan plays that way across all of this record and most of the ELO catalog. He’s channels the Zen of Ringo and the late Charlie Watts, laying out when he is not needed and holding the beat but never interfering with any of those arrangements or those multi-layered vocals.

   A short fanfare, some more shimmering strings serve as a bridge and then you’re into Boy Blue, one of ELO’s songs that was a single for some reason failed to catch on. Again, this is prototypical of this era: Lynne’s slightly crunchy guitar to start and get your attention, then it falls back into the mix until the very Harrison like snaking slide lines in the last verses. I personally love the hook in the arrangement of plucking the strings through the break between the first chorus right through the final verses. The final chord of Boy Blue winds into an odd guitar intro and into Laredo Tornado. The lyric laments changes in the common ELO theme of summer fading into cold and rain. This song was a discovery for me and has flown to the top of favorite ELO album tracks. Poor Boy [The Greenwood] is a short little stab of late 50s / early 60s rock & roll that the late period Move used to do: California Man, Down On the Bay. At the end it spins back into the flurry of strings and vocals theme from the Overture and that served as the interlude between Can’t Get It Out Of My Head and Boy Blue.

   Side two kicks off with Mr. Kingdom, an ode to the King of Dreams and the many words one can visit through dreaming. It reminds me that Morpheus once cautioned a young girl named Chloe who had just woken from a dream of being lost that “You can indeed become lost, in dreams. And you may not always find yourself when you wake up.” [The Sandman by Neil Gaiman] Nobody’s Fool feels like a send up of vaudeville, based on the Minnie the Moocher [i.e. Willie the Weeper]. Despite the ritzy title Illusions In G Major, the song is a pure send up of 50s Elvis / Jerry Lee Lewis rock & roll. The finale is the title song and the Eldorado Finale [which is just a recap of the Overture theme]. Eldorado is a fitting finale, a full on homage to Roy Orbison’s]. great ballads and those schmaltzy final “I will overcome / I will be free” songs form the movies. Make no mistake, Lynne is NOT Orbison but he swings high with his limited voice and holds those notes a lot like Orbison. It still works.

   Eldorado is a fine piece of work from ELO. I will even go as far as to call it a masterpiece.  They finally settle into their own style after meandering a bit with their first couple of records. It suggests the streamlining and stepping closer to the pop music that will come with A New World Record and especially Out Of the Blue. As I said, I ran through it several times and it still felt fresh and interesting and one can hear more little details the deeper one listens.