Here's one for the weekend.
OK I'm aware that there was a long period of time when owning an ELO album was not something to be admitted in public; borrowing Out of the Blue required a brown paper bag. I'm not for a moment suggesting they were deep and meaningful (although, alarmingly, I had a friend who said he was deeply moved by their lyrics - he was very intelligent, had a significant job and, worse, he meant it). But they were (after a certain point, and especially in the Jeff Lynne years) relentlessly cheerful and great fun to hear and watch - oh for a band that lands in a giant spaceship!
So...Roll Over Beethoven in the annals of fun rock was like a planetary conjunction: Chuck Berry rock'n'roll referencing the contrast with classical music, meets the rock band with classical pretensions - oh for a band that plays cellos on their heads! Just how pretentious can be seen in the Roy Wood years (for evidence that they were on herbal throat tablets, try this - is this really the man behind Wizard?). This is the band, believe it or not, that Lennon said represented a direction The Beatles would have taken if they had stayed together.
Anyway, here's the version I'm used to: LastFM Spotify
And here is what I have just discovered is the album version.
Not 'arf!
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3 comments:
Ah, the fun side of the tracks.... rock'n'roll was always meant to be a fusion of real life and utter madness. And I have to say this gets my vote for a good time, any time.
It reminds me so much of that era. Not hard to see how Roy went from here to See My Baby Jive and ultimately to I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. What's less obvious is how Jeff & Co. could get from here to Horace Wimp.
But that's the thing: as far as I know Roy Wood was the arty one (by the way, where we lived before you could just see his house in the distance) - and Jeff Lynne was the one with the accessible melodies...
Just been listening to Rockaria off New World Record - seems like post-Roy ELO trying to recapture the same territory.
Btw, we could start a new series of posts on famous people's homes we've seen - I could list Ian Botham and a Tory MP and Cabinet Minister who lived near Dorking (I forget his name....). And whilst we're talking politicians, the late James Callaghan once waved to me - in London, in late 1980. He was, by then, Leader Of The Opposition). Sorry, rambling now - put it down to age & alcohol.
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