The first time that I can ever remember hearing this song was whilst watching the movie Billy Madison. That scene always stood out as just a little odd and funny. I didn’t know what the song was but I could remember and sing along to it with ease.
I didn’t really dig into Electric Light Orchestra until around 2018/19. At the time I had a habit of picking a band I had never really listened to and just back-to-backing all their albums to get a feel for them. I did it with ELO and I absolutely fell in love. Jeff Lynne is a fantastic songwriter, like one of the very best, and that means picking the entry that ELO would have on the playlist pretty hard.
The obvious choice would be Mr Blue Sky. The Atomic Kitten fan in me would vote for Last Train To London. Turn To Stone deserves a mention for sure. If I had to pick any ELO song to be in second place it would probably be Livin’ Thing, but nothing can top the emotional tug that Telephone Line has.
So let’s do this. ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA – TELEPHONE LINE. The following listen along commentary is tagged to the above video so listen along for added excitement.
[0:00] That weird kinda sci-fi intro breaks into the intro which is immediately sad. It’s quite a cinematic piece of music and just immediately puts you in the head space.
[0:26] That fucking voice man. The effect on the vocals leaves questions in your head as a listener. Is he talking to me? Is this a conversation? The lyrics will slowly tell us that this isn’t a conversation at all, this is a plea. It’s the sound of somebody willing another person to answer, and to let them communicate. It fucking kills me.
[0:50] Those first two deliveries of the little breaks that will later become powerful band moments with the drums, but here they are simple and just a little flourish on the ride cymbal.
[0:58] I love the string parts in the verse. The first few times they come in it’s almost as a call-and-response reply to the vocals. “Don’t you realise the things we did, we did, were all for real” that line hits. This mattered to the protagonist and the idea that their subject might not feel that same way hurts.
[1:16] THE HARMONIES! The harmonies really stand out, until now every line has been delivered with nothing behind it, just a single vocal track, so when they come in they strike you. And then we get the breaks at the end of the verse but this time with some drum fills to add a bit of tension and build.
[1:34] We’re into motown doo-wop lyrics and I fucking dare anybody in this world to not sing along. I FUCKING DARE YOU. The melody of the vocals is mind blowingly good, but the arrangement really stands out. For something put to record in 1976 this is some really fucking amazing production going on. Some songs just nail it in terms of the music telling you everything, and honestly you could take away the lyrics and this would still be a banger.
[1:48] Here is my favourite moment of the song. The backing vocals answer back with this almost Lennon-esque sarcasm, it’s biting but delivered with such beauty “The love you need ain’t gonna see you through“. It always reminds me of Getting Better by The Beatles. “It couldn’t get much worse” it has this feeling that somebody else is almost poking at the protagonist, even undercutting the story.
[2:01] And before we can even focus on that we get the second half of the chorus. OOOOOH OOOOH! Those two oohs almost compete with another another. The melody just kills. All I want to fucking do is sway and sing along. The little flourish on the line. It’s those little bits that take a song writer like Jeff Lynne and elevate a good track to something iconic.
[2:28] And then we just calm down again. The telephone ring comes back and it’s a proper cool down moment.
[2:45] This third verse hurts. It’s the realisation. That conversation that our protagonist wants so dearly isn’t coming. Nobody is answering but the desperation is too much. He’ll just keep waiting. He has something that he has to say. The arrangement also changes up a little, we get some counter melody from the strings which give this extra tug of sadness.
Now we come to an important part of this series of blogs. I FUCKING HATE FADE OUTS! THEY SHOULD BE FUCKING OUTLAWED! Which means every time that I include a song that has one I will have to justify to you why we are allowing the song writer to make that sin.
Why is this fade out allowed, Sam?
OK. This song is about desperation, and the protagonist not giving up. He says it clearly in the third verse. He is going to let this ring forevermore. So that means in not ending the song it’s a representation of the protagonist carrying on with this need to speak to the subject.
This isn’t a fade out because the song doesn’t have a proper ending. IT’S NOT FUCKING OVER! THIS WILL NEVER BE OVER UNTIL YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING TELEPHONE MOTHERFUCKER!
If the song fucking ends then that means giving up. JEFF LYNNE QUITS FOR NOBODY BABY!
OK, point made.
So let’s get to the question and answer phase of this piece.
Question 1: Why do unhappy songs make such great slow dances?
We think of a slowy being a romantic song but so often the best ones are the ones that are devoid of romance, the best ones are often about hurt and sadness. There is only one explanation for this, and that is that we are all going to die alone. OK, maybe that’s not quite the answer. There’s a great live video of this where the audience are all embracing and dancing together, and it does make me ponder on this question. Why do we end up taking this song about basically being ignored and turn it into a moment of romance and closeness to somebody? Humans are fucking weird, all of you.
Question 2: Did the call get picked up?
It’s valentines day tomorrow so I should probably tell you that, yes, the call did get answered and there was a happy ending………… but I don’t think so. If the call gets answered then the message of the song changes. It’s no longer about wanting and it instead it becomes some form of reconciliation.
Question 3: Does the protagonist deserve a happy ending?
We all deserve a happy ending, reader. Something that I really admire about this song lyrically that so many modern songs fail on, is that it doesn’t tell us what happened. Why is protagonist being ignored? Did he do something wrong? Did the other person? It doesn’t tell us. Modern songs so often fall into the trope of the “I’m the problem, it’s me” thing where they almost romanticise being the bad guy. I’m an emo kid, I love that shit, but I’m glad that doesn’t happen here. The song isn’t about what happened, or how it might be resolved, it’s just about the denial of contact. I think it is reasonable to read that the protagonist is likely trying to apologise or make up for some wrong doing but we don’t know that for sure.
So there we are. The first entry on the list. Electric Light Orchestra welcome to the playlist.
I have been debating whether to end each entry with a tease for the next, but I’ve decided not to. Mostly as I don’t know how long it will be between entries. I might add the next one this week, it also might be way longer than that. So in the meantime I suggest you jump into the back catalogue of ELO. I’ll leave you with a video of the live performance that I mentioned earlier along with the words of one of my greatest inspirations.
Come back on, ELO, and carry on playing
Alan Partridge
