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The 11 best songs by Jeff Lynne’s ELO
Top 10? Here's 11. With Jeff Lynne’s ELO set to bid farewell in 2025, we’ve ranked the best Electric Light Orchestra songs.
Countless bands have tried, and failed, to fill the void left behind in pop music when The Beatles called it a day in 1970. Electric Light Orchestra, thanks to their sonic architect Jeff Lynne certainly came closer than most however, with John Lennon famously endorsing the band, even dubbing him the “Sons of Beatles”.
Bonafide Brummie legend Lynne has never shied away from his adoration of the Fab Four, yet traversed musical territory they’d never reach as a band owing to their infamous dissolution. Formed in 1970 with Roy Wood – who departed two years after to pursue Christmas song royalties with Wizzard – Jeff Lynne steered his sonic spaceship through glam rock to prog-pop to disco-indebted spankers, all of which were embellished by the Electric Light Orchestra’s (yep, you guessed it) trademark orchestration.
Lynne initially brought the band to an end in 1986, going on to form the Traveling Wilburys and even work with The Beatles’ surviving members on ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ in 1995. By uniting in the studio with the musical heroes that inspired him to pursue music in the first place, he fulfilled a boyhood dream. But that was after nearly two decades of illuminating global charts with the Electric Light Orchestra’s lavish string-laden disco rock, selling a mammoth 50 million records worldwide and later being honoured with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All the while refusing to remove his sunglasses, ever.
After reviving his outfit in 2014, Jeff Lynne’s ELO is setting off on an astral trip for the very last time in 2025, with farewell shows at Manchester’s Co-op Live, a hometown goodbye at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena, before their final ever concert headlining BST Hyde Park. What better time to revisit the Electric Light Orchestra’s very best 11 songs then:
11. ‘10538 Overture’
The Electric Light Orchestra’s psychedelic debut single certainly sounds primitive compared to later releases, but featured all of the hallmarks which would propel the group towards substantial commercial success. Originally penned for his former band The Move, Lynne augmented the running lead guitar riff with bristling strings – a far cry from their traditionally smooth, sumptuous orchestration – in an ambitious attempt to replicate George Martin’s arrangements on ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. It was the first time Lynne realised he was capable of writing a hit single, after it crept into the top ten of the UK charts, and the first of many.
10. ‘Showdown’
Whilst newer generations of ELO acolytes might have been made aware of ‘Showdown’ after it soundtrack Bill Murray’s toupee-adorning antics in 1996’s goofball bowling comedy Kingpin (or maybe not), the band’s 1973 single found a fan in none other than John Lennon. Dispensing a sacred endorsement of Lynne’s handiwork during a 1974 interview, Lennon said: “‘Showdown’, I thought, was a great record and I was expecting it to be number one but I don’t think UA [United Artists] got their fingers out and pushed it. And it’s a nice group – I call them ‘Son of Beatles’ – although they’re doing things we never did, obviously. But I remember a statement they made when they first formed was to carry on from where the Beatles left off with ‘[I Am The] Walrus’, and they certainly did.”
9. ‘Telephone Line’
Comparison to The Beatles’ songbook would forever loom over Jeff Lynne. Not that it hindered his band one bit however. 50s doo-wop throwback ‘Telephone Line’ was hailed as “the best Lennon-McCartney collaboration that never was” by critics, becoming the Electric Light Orchestra’s biggest Stateside hit in the process. The conversational opening line “hello?” sounds suspiciously similar to a certain Lionel Richie mega ballad too…
8. ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’’
Long before the age of social media sleuthing, Jeff Lynne stated his desire to rediscover the elusive ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’ the only way he knew how: write a song, of course. Based on the whirling disco-rock ditty, she really put his head in a spin. So much so that the song originally had the more morose feel and theme, titled ‘Dead End Street’. Thankfully, he cheered up a bit and re-wrote it from top to bottom.
7. ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’
Adrenaline-inducing romper stomper ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ was the first Electric Light Orchestra single to refrain from using their string section – who Lynne fired during recording. The meaty, cavernous sounding drums looping throughout proved to be too infectious, in what became the band’s biggest single on both sides of the pond (if you fail to consider bloody ‘Xanadu’, which I will). That’s in spite of Lynne singing gibberish throughout, ie “groose” which was often mistaken for “Bruce”, which also made no sense.
6. ‘Last Train To London’
The funk heavy rhythm of ‘Last Train To London’ sounds almost identical to Heatwave’s perennial floorfiller ‘Boogie Nights’ from two years earlier, but that doesn’t alter the bubbling bassline being far too irresistible to really care or criticise. Many critics did, of course. You can’t win ‘em all. Still, you can envisage some serious “bass face” and butt wiggling going down in New York City’s many discotheques after it came out in 1979. Shame that Tony Manera never got a chance to strut his thang to it.
5. ‘Ma-Ma-Ma Belle’
Few glam rock riffs swagger quite as rudely as the band’s fourth ever single, and none of the Electric Light Orchestra’ other songs come anywhere close. Likely because T. Rex’ Marc Bolan and his flirtatious feather bower injected some sauce during its recording, playing twin lead guitar alongside Lynne. He ditched any semblance of crunchy distortion soon after, leaving ‘Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle’ as a relative outlier in their oeuvre.
4. ‘Livin’ Thing’
‘Livin’ Thing’ may have become advert fodder in recent years – which has re-launched the song back into the charts on a handful of occasions – but given its undeniable harmonic pop majesty, you can understand its consistent reusage. Camp, yes. But clichéd? Hell no. Lynne was a master at disguising intricate chord progressions behind radio-ready melody. A trick he learned from (yes, one of The Beatles) George Harrison. “‘Livin’ Thing” had an augmented chord. George used a lot of those chords, too,” Lynne told Goldmine magazine in 2013. “Trying to marry the two styles together, trying to put those funny old Victorian chords into a new song gives it a good lift.”
3. ‘Mr. Blue Sky’
Well well well, the Electric Light Orchestra’s biggest anthem ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ landing in at a paltry third place? It’ll no doubt serve as their encore. It’ll likely be the song that most die-hards and newbies alike are desperate to hear live. If this list was a ranking for their most chipper, cheery and uplifting songs, then it’d certainly skip its way to the summit. But is it anywhere near their greatest song? No. Nope. Nada. Still, the vocoder-dense vocal and rainbow-tinted optimism ensures it’ll be an eternal earworm and a fixture of their setlist when they call it a day.
2. ‘Evil Woman’
Fans of both the Electric Light Orchestra and The Pussycat Dolls (for which I can envisage the Venn diagram cross section is negligible) would know they share something in common. The 00s pop troupe sampled the band’s hit single ‘Evil Woman’, from album Face The Music which launched Lynne on to the worldwide stage in 1975. The bedrock rumbling drum fills, the lush strings and the wiggling lead guitar colourised Lynne’s lament over a real woman that’s plagued him throughout a number of his compositions. “It was inspired by a certain woman, but I can’t say who. She’s appeared a few times in my songs,” he told Rolling Stone in 2016.
1. ‘Strange Magic’
The Electric Light Orchestra aren’t exactly renowned for their balladeering, but ‘Strange Magic’ is justly deserving of this ranking’s top spot. The illusory love song floats along on stardust strings and phasered guitar throughout, and could easily be mistaken as George Harrison’s craftwork – an artist Jeff Lynne would serendipitously collaborate with some years later – if it wasn’t for the Bee Gees-reaching falsetto present in the hallucinogenic chorus. It’s a song befitting of the stargazing conclusion to his live career when Jeff Lynne’s ELO lifts off for the final time in 2025.
