Almanac Music: On The Third Day

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been listening to the back catalog of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) in the car over the past couple of weeks and appropriately (although entirely coincidentally) today (the 3rd of the 3rd), the band’s third album, On The Third Day is spinning around in the CD player.

 

It came out in 1973, and did well in the US but did not make a huge ripple here in Australia. ELO’s worldwide ‘ripple’, which quickly developed into a tsunami, came in 1976 with the release of their sixth album ‘A New World Record’.

 

‘A New World Record’ was my introduction to ELO and the genius of front-man, lead guitarist, writer of 99.9% of the band’s songs and also the producer of all their albums, Jeff Lynne. I discovered ELO through ‘A New World Record’ in 1977 when my brother Jamie brought it home and whacked it on the turntable. The album’s ‘spaceship landing’ intro blew me away and I was hooked within seconds.

 

Ironically, I came to discover the band and the album later than I should have. Months before, I was with another brother, Tony, in our local record shop and he was looking to buy some new music. I can distinctly remember him showing me the cover of ‘A New World Record’ and saying “What about this?”

 

Not having heard any of their music I strongly advised him against buying it purely because the band was an “orchestra”! Thanks to Jamie, I later learned that ELO was not the sort of orchestra I’d pictured. (Having said that, these days it wouldn’t scare me off if they were.)

 

I listened to ‘A New World Record’ far more times than Jamie ever did. It was my Friday arvo ‘unwind’ album. In my early high school years Friday was an early knock-off day for me and I’d get home before anyone else and play the album loud. I came to know every nuance of every song.

 

ELO’s seventh album, ‘Out of the Blue’, came out soon after, with a cover featuring the ELO logo as an actual spaceship. This made me love them even more, as did every song on the album. Friday’s after school became twice as good, with me home alone playing both albums loudly.

 

After that came 1979’s Discovery, which was a little bit too disco for me. (The album name was an intended pun — Disco? Very!  ELO then collaborated with Olivia Newton-John for Xanadu, again slightly underwhelming for me.

 

Then came 1981’s ‘Time’, which I distinctly remember being semi-mocked by a reviewer as “another ‘concept’ album”. I remember being offended by proxy. How dare anyone speaking mockingly of “my band”.

 

It was around this time that I heard a couple of their songs I’d not previously heard, ‘Strange Magic’ and ‘Evil Woman’, being aired on radio. Like many who had found ELO through ‘A New World Record’, I was unaware that ELO even had earlier stuff. I thought they were a brand new super group and I was one of the first to get onto them. Not even close.

 

I began to do a deep dive into their past. There was no google or even internet back in 1981 so a ‘deep dive’ was a trip to East Keilor (in Melbourne’s north-west) where the original JB HiFi began.

 

In those days JB had a big focus on rare stuff and imported albums. Over a period of months I bought ‘Face The Music’, (which featured ‘Strange Magic’ and ‘Evil Woman’) and then their first four albums one at a time in reverse chronological order, slowly unravelling the evolution of this band that had completely captivated me.

 

The third-last of those purchases was ‘On The Third Day’. It had preceded 1974’s El Dorado (very much a ‘concept’ album) which featured a full choir and orchestra and was highly polished.

 

‘On The Third Day’ is no such thing but is a great insight into Jeff Lynne’s development as a songwriter and producer.

 

It spawned a hit song ‘Showdown’ which has a funny story attached to it. The subject is by no means light — nasty relationship breakdown sort of stuff — and one of the lines is, “It’s unreal the suffering”. But that line became a classic ‘Mondrian’ (a misheard lyric), with many listeners believing Jeff was singing, “It’s a real submarine”.

 

It made absolutely no sense, but then, many lyrics don’t. Jeff found it all very amusing, and began singing “It’s a real submarine” at live gigs. Later, he re-recorded the song with the “fan” version of the lyrics and even the official printed lyrics read thus.

 

Hardcore fans of the later ELO years would get a real kick out of hearing some of the songs on ‘On The Third Day’. The opening of ‘New World Rising’ features a distant voice saying “Good morning”, which is almost like an early version the intro of their biggest hit, Mr Blue Sky, which opens with a radio voice saying “Morning! Today’s forecast calls for blue skies.”

 

‘On The Third Day’ features a fair bit of experimentation with violins and cellos and the Moog synthesiser, all of which became ELO signatures down the track. The fusion of classical music and rock is developing nicely.

 

There is a stand-out, pure rock track, though, ‘Ma-Ma-Belle’ (about which Colin Ritchie wrote on these pages only a couple of months ago) which was also released as a single. It’s a good old-fashion electric rocker featuring some really clichéd lyrics and gruff Jeff Lynne vocals (The gruff vocals had disappeared by the time of ‘Discovery’, replaced by a smoother, gentler voice. I’ve never been sure if this was a choice Jeff made or his vocal cords were on the wane.)

 

I used to devour the liner notes of albums but one thing ELO’s original album releases did not include was credits for any singers or musicians that were not a core part of the band.

 

So I was shocked, pleasantly so, when I found out years later than Ma-Ma-Belle’s double lead guitar sound was produced not just by Jeff but by also Marc Bolan — yes, he of T-Rex fame.

 

The great thing about albums later being remastered and re-released is that (a) proper credits are given (b) you usually get additional comments from the artist and (c) you’ll often get early takes of songs as bonus tracks.

 

The extended version of ‘On The Third Day’ delivers on all three fronts. In the liner notes of the 2006 re-release, Jeff says, “I feel that I’ve told the story of Marc Bolan playing double lead guitar with me on ‘Ma-Ma-Belle’ so many times before that I won’t mention it again. Anyway it’s true. What a nice thing!”

 

Indeed it is, and track 10 on the expanded edition is “Auntie” a first take of the song that became Ma-Ma-Belle. (Check it out here.) It is stripped back to pretty much the lead guitar riff, and it is here that you can really hear that it’s Bolan on one of the guitars. It kind of harks back to the intro of T-Rex’s Telegram Sam for me.

 

Jeff’s Marc Bolan comment also betrays a sense of humour that was rarely evident in Jeff’s ELO songs — at least not in the songs originally released. One thing I’ve noticed in a lot of the re-releases are the bonus tracks. ‘On The Third Day’ includes a song called ‘Everyone Is Born To Die” and upbeat, almost country, ditty. The album before that features the previously unreleased demo of a song called, ‘Baby I Apologize’. It is hilarious and musically brilliant, with chords that Jeff himself looks back on and admires.

 

One wonders whether the more serious musical image was the idea of Jeff, his management or both. Either way, it’s nice to see it shine through now, decades later.

 

If you know and love all the ‘big’ ELO hits, it’s worth a deep dive into band’s early years. In fact I’d suggest going back even further to the days of The Move and before that, The Idle Race. The two Idle Race albums fronted by Jeff highlight just how wonderfully whimsical he was.

 

As a starting point, the expanded release of ‘On The Third Day’ isn’t a bad place, especially today, on the third of the third. Give it a shot, as a birthday present to me.

 

 

My original vinyl copy of On The Third Day — still in good nick!

 

 

 

 

Read more from Gigs HERE.

 

 

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