The ELO song Jeff Lynne wrote to sound American: “Maybe like The Doobie Brothers or something”
If you grew up in the 1950s and ’60s in Britain then it is only natural that you had a somewhat unhealthy obsession with America. In fact, for decades afterwards, the intense desperation of school kids from Barnsley to Bicester to say they had visited or been close to the United States was a palpable and ever-present paradigm in canteens up and down the country. Jeff Lynne was no different.
The USA seemed too grand and too flashy to resist for generations of children who looked away from the comparative doldrums of the UK toward the bright lights of the new world. For Lynne, as he grew up in the 1950s, it was the home of rock and roll. Even as the 1960s presented themselves as Britain’s cultural time to shine, the American dream was still apparent. And it could be felt in his songs.
Every piece of the Electric Light Orchestra’s sound always comes back to the mind of Jeff Lynne. While he may have had a healthy diet of rock music when he first started out, Lynne’s way of incorporating classical instruments into the rock format changed the landscape of what fans were used to, leading to songs that felt like musical symphonies playing in your head. Although Lynne admitted to loving all kinds of rock music, there was one song where he wore his influences on his sleeve a bit too much.
When discussing Lynne’s influences, all roads tend to lead back to The Beatles. Aside from him taking part in the partial Beatles reunion with the release of the songs ‘Free As a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, most of ELO’s trademark sound came from Lynne trying to emulate his heroes, with John Lennon even calling them the group’s spiritual brethren.
Although Lynne could easily make a musical cosplay of the Fab Four for the rest of his life, he was more interested in making large sonic expanses with every record he made. Across records like Face the Music or Out of the Blue, Lynne was toying with the traditional format of rock and roll songs, turning in musical symphonies that didn’t always cater to live performances like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ and ‘Rockaria’.
Of all the albums Lynne had a hand in, A New World Record feels the most indebted to the classical instruments, utilising strings and guitars to create a wall of sound on tracks like ‘Telephone Line’ and ‘Do Ya’. For all of the musical avenues Lynne could venture down, ‘So Fine’ remained one of the catchiest songs he had ever made, complete with a rapid-fire guitar lick driving the song along.
Even though Lynne had a singular voice in the studio, he admitted to having some inspiration from a fellow legend of the 1970s rock scene when making the song. After listening to songs by American rock mainstays The Doobie Brothers, Lynne wanted to create something equally bouncy. It was the harmonies of The Doobie Brothers and acts like The Four Freshmen, The Beach Boys and The Byrds that had captivated him.
When talking about the song’s writing, Lynne mentioned that the group were the key inspiration behind the track, recalling, “I really don’t know much about it. It’s just that I wrote it and sang the thing. And um- I suppose it was along the lines of a – like an American, trying to sound like an American style. Maybe like The Doobie Brothers or something, y’know, trying to sound a bit like an American group with harmonies”.
While Lynne may have been trying to be diplomatic about where he got his inspiration, it’s clear that the guitar lick originates in the song ‘Long Train Running’. Written around the time of disco, The Doobie Brothers classic has the signature percussive element to strumming found in bands like Chic from around the same time, which Lynne would later adopt into his classic.
Compared to ‘Long Train Running’, ‘So Fine’ practically has the same rhythmic accents as well, only with the chord sequence flipped around and transposed down a few keys to make it sound different. Although Lynne may never have received any legal action for his Doobie Brothers lift, the art of any great songwriter is taking their inspirations like this and turning them into timeless pieces of art.
