“Every song I wrote”: Jeff Lynne’s Midas moment that turned ELO into giants
After years of treading the boards and coming on the precipice of success, when ELO finally roared into the open, Jeff Lynne was right to feel it was well-deserved.
Yet what he may not have expected was that for a certain time in the crux of the 1970s, the band would have become one of the indisputably biggest in the world, and it was all thanks to the work of his deft hand over one prized period. Lynne was, of course, no stranger to the innards of the industry, having played with The Move, but this was something different.
Suddenly, without much rhyme or reason for the change, ELO became the envy of all, and much of that was to do with the sheer sonic mastery that was rarely seen elsewhere in the rock music scene at the time. This is not an attempt to discredit anyone, but the sense of Lynne’s sheer sonic ambition was something that was quite clearly poles apart from the rest.
However, despite Lynne’s mastery of turning heads in every corner of the business in the band’s direction, the level of acclaim wasn’t really something that the frontman himself was particularly paying attention to, even though it would be arguably hard to miss. When once asked if he was aware of how massive ELO had become, his simple reply was “not really”.
It might have seemed like a bit of a flippant answer, but the reality was that Lynne was burying his head in the sand, to a certain extent, in order to avoid the weight of other people’s opinions pressing in on him. “Obviously, when you put out a record, you hope it’s going to do well. I used to be very wary of reading anything in case it changed me or my thoughts about what I was going to do next,” he said.
With his singularly unique artistic vision still intact, Lynne could happily continue doing what he did best – and he was, at least, conscious of that much. Over the span of A New World Record, Out of the Blue, and Discovery, the frontman delivered a hat-trick of experimental masterpieces that would come to be hailed as his greatest hallmarks.
“I could do no wrong,” he confessed while looking back on that illustrious time period. “Every song I wrote came together easily. It was just one of those patches – about five years’ worth. I was really lucky to go through that.” It was perhaps this, above all else, that made many other artists’ eyes glow green with jealousy.
It seemed for a time that Lynne was completely unstoppable, he could do no wrong, and he had the Midas touch in music where everything he touched turned into solid gold. Of course, the illusion did eventually fade, but five years is a hell of a long time to keep that continued glittering streak going.
It was easy to see how, in the midst of the moment, people thought his reign was never going to end. But by the same token, it was also up to Lynne to realise this and milk it for all it was worth. He may not have paid attention to the critics, but for that part, he was always 100% on the money.
