“I’d got fed up”: The musicians Jeff Lynne hated working with
Every song that Jeff Lynne wrote always came from a place of fun for him. There was no doubt that he loved the opportunity to make records, and no matter how many times people compared some of his best tunes to those of The Beatles, there are worse things to be called than someone who rips off one of the greatest rock bands to walk the Earth. But while Lynne did have the kind of workhorse mentality whenever he went into the studio, not everyone managed to share his enthusiasm once the red light was turned on.
Before anyone started working with Lynne, though, they had to know what they were getting into. Lynne was dead set on making records that were as perfect as they could be, which meant having a clear vision for how the song should sound. That might be easy for any passive musician, but not being able to stretch out at all will always be a bit of a letdown in the studio.
That also applies to how Lynne wrote the string arrangements as well. The whole thing was supposed to be an orchestra, after all, and while the classical instruments do a fine job at bringing a sense of regality to every one of their records, it’s easy to see them being worked out on guitar first. They were playing a lot of basic pentatonic riffs from any guitarist’s arsenal, only they have been transposed to violins.
It may have cost a pretty penny to bring all those musicians into the mix, but it was always worth it. I mean, the crux of a song like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ was always going to work even if it were played on one acoustic guitar, but listening to the way that everything builds to a climax with the orchestra and the choir vocals playing in the background, the thought of hearing a stripped-down version of the tune feels wrong.
But being a session musician is a much different experience than being a band member. Every musician needs to get paid a decent wage if they want to thrive in the industry, and for a rock band that would normally spend all the time needed to make a great record, no one would be thrilled to hear that they were getting paid a normal wage if everything ended up running late.
“In those days, the unions used to be so mean and strict – they would stop playing as soon as the clock got to the 12. They’d put the gear away, however far through the song you were, which I thought was a rotten trick because you wouldn’t do that to anybody.”
Jeff Lynne
Lynne wasn’t about to roll over because of a few picky session musicians, though, and by the time the 1980s began, he was more than happy to ditch the original musicians on his first albums, saying, “I’d got fed up with strings by then. In those days, the unions used to be so mean and strict – they would stop playing as soon as the clock got to the 12. They’d put the gear away, however far through the song you were, which I thought was a rotten trick because you wouldn’t do that to anybody. Bloody-minded, I’d call it. So I got fed up with using strings and was really glad when the synths came in.”
Looking at where he would go, Lynne truly fell in love with how those synth pads sounded during his production career. His work with Tom Petty on Full Moon Fever may have been considered a bit more rootsy than his ELO tunes, but the reason why ‘Free Fallin’ resonates with people is because that slight synth in the background makes everything feel like it’s floating on air.
In fact, Lynne’s production may have ended up calling back to how bands like The Beatles approached their craft. The session musicians were a nice touch, but they wouldn’t do anything the band couldn’t pull off with flying colours.
