The 1960 song Jeff Lynne called the greatest in pop: “The most marvellous thing”
Jeff Lynne wasn’t the kind who wanted to be subtle every single time he went into the studio.
There are definitely some tunes that he’s written that are a bit more subdued than others, but when you form a band that has the word ‘orchestra’ right in the name, not many people are thinking that they’re going to be in for something that’s really downplayed. Everyone knew that Lynne could pile on as many tracks as he wanted and still get away with it, but every one of them had to be in service of making the song better whenever he performed.
The most important lesson that every musician needs to know is when not to add something new into the mix, and Lynne knew that method since he first started out. He didn’t like the idea of making songs that were nothing but mindless jamming, and while there were definitely some extravagant moments on those first ELO records, some of his favourite songs were ones that got the most out of a simple arrangement.
Which probably explains why one of his proudest achievements is being able to work with Tom Petty on Full Moon Fever. That whole album was only completed in a few short days, and when you listen to the songs, there’s not a lot of window dressing, because when you look at the giants that both Lynne and Petty had been listening to, none of them were making their living by making everything sound like a symphony.
There’s a time and place for that, but Lynne was the one shellshocked when listening to some of the best singers of his generation. Elvis Presley may have set Petty’s world on fire when he heard him for the first time, but when Lynne started falling in love with rock and roll, Roy Orbison managed to take every single one of his tunes and make it sound like one of the most dramatic operas of all time.
He was willing to push himself to get one of the most gorgeous vocals ever laid down, and when Lynne heard ‘Only the Lonely’ for the first time, he felt that pop had officially reached perfection, saying, “I was sitting in the living room, and my mum and my auntie was there listening to the radio.”
Adding, “They were talking, but the radio was on, and ‘Only The Lonely’ came on, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My mum and my auntie said, ‘Ooh, that’s horrible. It’s too sexy,’ so that’s a funny thing. I was only thirteen at the time, but I thought, ‘That’s the most marvellous thing I’ve ever heard.’”
‘Sexy’ is definitely subjective at this point when talking about Orbison’s voice, but you can’t deny the passion that he had behind everything he sang. ‘Crying’ sounded like he had his heart torn out and stomped into a million pieces, and every single time his voice shook on one of his records, it was like he was using his entire body to get the most emotion out of the tune as he could.
And it’s not like Lynne couldn’t add that same kind of vocal tone to his own tunes. He might have reserved the more operatic vocal performances for other vocalists when making a tune like ‘Rockaria’, but even when singing by himself, you could tell that he was just as focused on making his voice sound as laid-back as he could to match everything that Orbison was doing behind the scenes.
He ultimately did get to return the favour to Orbison when working with him on a few solo projects and the Traveling Wilburys, but what the crooner gave Lynne could never be repaid. Because when you hear someone sing, like Orbison does for the first time, it would be enough to have someone on a high for the rest of their lives.
