‘Only the Lonely’: The song Jeff Lynne considered a production masterpiece
Any great rock song usually benefits from having the perfect production behind it. Even if the sounds of hardcore punk were meant to sound like they were being recorded from the bottom of a trash can, there are always ways for a producer to twist things around, so it sounds like one of the most highly-polished trash cans in the world. Although Jeff Lynne usually relies on production more pristine than that, he admitted that some of his early work got his ears perked up to what production could sound like.
But when rock and roll was starting to come out of the woodwork, the most that people had to rely on was a couple of mics and a decent performance out of everyone. You have to remember that the biggest names in blues also came from having the bare minimum to work with and looking back on those early Elvis Presley records, most of them rely on ‘The King’s voice taking precedence over everything else in the mix.
When looking at how Lynne structured his productions, there’s typically one four-headed monster lurking in the background. Aside from the fact that he would later produce The Beatles’ final singles, Lynne was the one responsible for carrying on the Fab Four’s tradition of weirdness into the 1970s once he started making songs like ‘Tightrope’ or ‘Mr Blue Sky’.
Although Lynne could coast by saying that The Beatles were the be-all and end-all for him, he was always a fan of the pre-Fab era of rock as well. Going back to the Traveling Wilburys records, the main reason why the band decided to record ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon was because of how much Lynne adored the song, even wondering whether they should ask Shannon to join the supergroup before his death.
Still, not even Shannon’s voice was going to take the place of Roy Orbison. Even when he was singing at a low register, Orbison had the high-stakes drama in his voice that you’d expect out of any stage performer, but listening to a song like ‘Only the Lonely’, Lynne was absolutely sold on the idea of production.
Despite the years of technical development, Lynne still felt that nothing quite matched what the band captured on the Orbison tune, saying, “My first record I ever, like, swooned over was ‘Only the Lonely’, which is absolutely a masterpiece. The engineering is superb as well.” And considering how cinematic ELO’s music could be, Orbison packed an entire soap opera into a three-minute song.
As much as the band give him a bed to put everything on top of, hearing Orbison reach to the top of his range is nothing short of heartwrenching when he plays the tune. Considering the whole song is about a man being played for a fool and watching his girl walk out of his life, Orbison sounds like his on the verge of tears half the time, as if he would melt to pieces if this woman decided to leave him.
While Lynne’s technical wizardry would grow by leaps and bounds by the end of the 1970s, the magic in here is something that very few people are able to pick up on. Because no matter how many times people try to layer guitar parts on top of each other for hours, there’s no accounting for the massive amount of taste put into this classic.
