Through Shadows of the Night

Electric Light Orchestra : Telephone Line

[Purchase]

 Electric Light Orchestra's "Telephone Line" spent the entire month of September 1977 in the U.S. Top 10. It was the band's biggest hit in the U.S. Made even better by the inclusion of  "Poorboy (The Greenwood)", from 1975's Eldorado, on the B-side. Lynne went though a lot of trouble to get the sound of an America phone ringing in the beginning of the song:

To get the sound on the beginning, you know, the American telephone sound, we phoned from England to America to a number that we know nobody would be at, to just listen to it for a while. On the Moog, we recreated the sound exactly by tuning the oscillators to the same notes as the ringing of the phone.

Jeff Lynne told Rolling Stone about composing the song:

I can remember writing this on an old out-of-tune upright piano. I somehow squeezed this song out of it. I sound really desperate and lonely on this one, and maybe I was. It's about trying to find a girl every night and you just can't get through to her. It was a scenario I thought of, but maybe it was prompted by the fact that I wasn't happy at the time. When I was a kid, I loved the plaintive songs of Del Shannon and Roy Orbison. They wrote songs that were really sad and those were the best. I thought I was writing those sort of songs. People tell me the song gives them a boost, but I never dreamed I was doing that for anybody.

40 Year Itch : Two Drifters on the Morning Sky

ELO : So Fine

[Purchase]

On September 11, 1976 Electric Light Orchestra released A New World Record, the breakthrough album that sold five million copies worldwide thanks to the singles "Livin'Thing", "Telephone Line" (which I bought) and the remake of Lynne's Move contribution "Do Ya". Lynne was on a roll, telling interviewers the songs were coming easily:

"The songs started to flow and most of them came quickly to me. To have all those hits, it was just ...I mean amazing really. Going from doing okay for probably three or four years to suddenly being in the big time, it was a strange but great thing."

Critics like Alan Niester of Rolling Stone agreed :

Lynne has always been rather deft with the melodic hook, and both "Livin' Thing" and "So Fine" are irresistible additions to his list of catchiest tunes. Numbers like "Mission (A World Record)" and "Shangri-la" continue the history of classy orchestral stylings that really rock, and Lynne's dominant vocals are as effectively foggy as ever. As expected, the production is lavish and the musicianship more than adequate to fulfill Lynne's Procol Harum-ish visions. By Christmas, A New World Record should be a staple in a million homes

When I joined the Columbia House Records Club in 1977, I was very tempted to pick up A New World Record. I never did. I already had the "Telephone Line" single and figured I'd get bored of the other songs.

My deep cut choice is "So Fine"just because it was a could have been single. It actually sounds like something the Ricky Gervais character David Brent could have written, until it gets to the bizarre electronic-turned-belly-dancing-music breakdown. On the album it segues deliciously into "Livin' Thing".