Fathers have always cast a long shadow in their children’s lives. This is no different for musicians. No matter who you are or what you do, you still want your parents to be proud of you.
Getting parental approval is sometimes easier said than done. Music history has several examples of fathers becoming critical to the point of abusiveness.
Murray Wilson, father of the Brian, Carl, And Dennis known from The Beach Boys, put his sons through physical and mental abuse. He smacked Brian to the extent that he got hearing damage, took the credit for their success, and harboured resentment as he felt he was a better songwriter. Joe Jackson, father of the Jackson Five, was similarly tough on his children, particularly expecting a lot from the youngest prodigy Michael. In more recent years, the debate about the role of Britney Spears’ father in her life has also been raging.
Fortunately things rarely get that dramatic. Parental unhappiness with their offspring’s choice of musical genre or songwriting approach is perhaps more common, but can still be very disappointing to hear for the musician. This is the story of one such occasion which eventually led to a positive outcome.
Jeff Lynne started playing in bands in his teens in the 1960s. He made two albums with The Idle Race, went on to make two albums with The Move, and eventually formed Electric Light Orchestra. ELO would become one of the great, classic rock bands of their era, but it is easy to forget that they did not see instant success.
Lynne had in fact lived at home with his parents well into his twenties, as big success had eluded him.
By 1973, he was having a modest but decent bit of success with ELO. They had released three albums – Electric Light Orchestra (1971), ELO 2 (1973), and On The Third Day (1973). These albums all did well enough, but the band was not increasing their renown. An utter lack of hits might have had something to do with it.
The early ELO albums are very progressive and full of intricate arrangements, and a segment of their fans will make the case that the band was never more interesting than during this period. They may not even be wrong. The music they made during these early years is certainly more than a bit different from the polished pop melodies that would follow later. We can credit Jeff Lynne’s father for the push which led to that change in direction.
Jeff Lynne was extremely proud of the third ELO album On The Third Day. He brought it home to his parents to play it for them, and we can imagine how keen he was to get their approval – to hear them say that they liked it. Perhaps he wanted his father’s approval more than anything, as it had eluded him for any of the ELO albums so far.
His father was always interested in hearing what his son had created, but just like previously, he just wasn’t able to get into the music he heard. He was not the kind of person who was likely to embrace songs like Dreaming On 4000 with its intricate arrangements, progressive mindset, technically proficient performances, and advanced production values.
Jeff Lynne has said that the conversation that followed would always be with him. It was a turning point in his career in many ways.
Having listened to the album, his father said “Son, this is the third album you have released with Electric Light Orchestra. And you still have not had a breakthrough. Do you know what you’re doing wrong?”
A stunned Jeff Lynne could only say “….no?”
“Your songs have no tune. You are not making any songs that are hummable. Songs that people can whistle. Songs that people will remember.”
A crushing judgement, although the father might have had a point. Jeff Lynne would acknowledge this later on, but at first, the comments were hurtful to him. He felt there were plenty of hooks and very clever arrangements in these songs, which were blankly dismissed – because people could not hum or whistle them?
His father’s comment stayed with him after he had left, eventually starting to piss him off. He got angry. The music was clearly not without its qualities and merits. How could it all be dismissed as ‘not hummable’? Lynne was not going for a lowest common denominator anyway. The music was meant to be advanced, containing progressive musical suites designed to thrill and impress. What was wrong with that?
Lynne was convinced that he was on the right path and won every internal argument about the music he was making. Still, his father’s words hung with him.
There was only one thing to do. Lynne decided to prove to his father that he was more than capable of creating music which was both melodic and hummable. Not just that, but he would do it without losing any of the production values and general approach that he was working within. He sat down by the piano and focused purely on creating something with a clear, strong, hummable melody. The only audience in his head for that song was one person: his father.
The result was the song Can’t Get It Out of My Head – written to show his father that he could write “a song with a tune.”
Midnight, on the water
I saw the ocean’s daughter
Walking on a wave’s she came
Staring as she called my name
And I can’t get it out of my head
No, I can’t get it out of my head
Now my whole world is gone for dead
‘Cause I can’t get it out of my head
The song would end up on the fourth ELO album Eldorado, which is considered by many to be one of the very best ELO albums. The song is the second track of the album, following the Eldorado Overture introduction which morphs into Can’t Get It Out of My Head seamlessly, linking the songs together.
The album is conceptual, with the plot following a character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams to escape his mundane reality. The album cover underlines this, showing what appears to be a scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz, as the Wicked Witch tries to snatch Dorothy’s Ruby Red Slippers.
Lynne recalled in an edition of VH1’s Storytellers that he found inspiration for the song in the unfulfilled reveries of an everyday bloke. “It’s about a guy in a dream who sees this vision of loveliness and wakes up and finds that he’s actually a clerk working in a bank,” he said. “And he hasn’t got any chance of getting her or doing all these wonderful things that he thought he was going to do.”
The song was originally recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in London, UK between 11-15 February 1974, although this was only the basic backing track. Additional material and orchestra sessions followed likely in July or August later that year.
When Jeff Lynne sat down with his father again to play him the new song, he got instant approval. “Congratulations, son. You have done it. This will be a worldwide hit.”
His father was right, and that is exactly what happened. Can’t Get It Out of My Head would became ELO’s first global hit, laying the foundation for their future success.
The song was released as a single in the US in November 1974, while UK/Europe had to wait until January 1975. It had already been released as part of the Eldorado album in any case, on 28 September 1974. It cracked the Top 10 in several markets, including the US, which went a long way towards securing ELO a gold album for the sales of Eldorado. It would become the sixteenth best-selling album in America in 1974.
The moral of the story? Sometimes it pays to listen to your parents!
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