ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE LIGHT
JEFF LYNNE
by Francis Rossi
"I'm not really someone who wanks over somebody.
Jeff Lynne is the closest I get to that. I'm
really taken with Jeff Lynne. To me, whatever he
does is donkey's knob. Now you're a bloke, and
we'd all love a donkey's knob, so you understand
that 'donkey's knob' means 'good'. Everything
he's done has been grand.
When Jeff writes, he'll do things the rest of us
wouldn't do. He'll write in a Welsh male voice
choir. He'll do a rock song and write in an
opera singer doing the whole aria thing. Or put
a girl on it. He does things that a lot of us
would like to do. We all have this invisible
parameter, like, 'you mustn't do that because
you're the Quo'. I can't stand that. What's the
matter with you people?
He sets up a scene somehow. I think it's
obviously inspired by things he heard when he was
younger - whether it's from famous movies, or
maybe Disney openings - and it's the emotion that
he sets up. I'd like to think you can hear Jeff
Lynne in the Quo ... but no. He uses the
five-chord trick, where I would use the
three-chord trick and to me, the five-chord trick
smacks of the 50s, and writers like Neil Sedaka
and Carole King.
I like too many of his songs. Telephone Line is
the five-chord trick, and he's got the telephone
sounds on there, he's changing voices, and all of
us must have experienced making that call. It
just evokes that emotion and puts you right
there, and he does that to me every time.
Bastard. My ticker starts going and I get
romantic. And it gets schmaltzy, I suppose, and
as much as I don't want to get schmaltzy, he
makes me feel 'aw, it's lovely'.
I'd love to think I was as good as Jeff Lynne,
but no ****ing way. That's fooling oneself. It's
only him and The Beatles, really."
JEFF LYNNE
by Francis Rossi
"I'm not really someone who wanks over somebody.
Jeff Lynne is the closest I get to that. I'm
really taken with Jeff Lynne. To me, whatever he
does is donkey's knob. Now you're a bloke, and
we'd all love a donkey's knob, so you understand
that 'donkey's knob' means 'good'. Everything
he's done has been grand.
When Jeff writes, he'll do things the rest of us
wouldn't do. He'll write in a Welsh male voice
choir. He'll do a rock song and write in an
opera singer doing the whole aria thing. Or put
a girl on it. He does things that a lot of us
would like to do. We all have this invisible
parameter, like, 'you mustn't do that because
you're the Quo'. I can't stand that. What's the
matter with you people?
He sets up a scene somehow. I think it's
obviously inspired by things he heard when he was
younger - whether it's from famous movies, or
maybe Disney openings - and it's the emotion that
he sets up. I'd like to think you can hear Jeff
Lynne in the Quo ... but no. He uses the
five-chord trick, where I would use the
three-chord trick and to me, the five-chord trick
smacks of the 50s, and writers like Neil Sedaka
and Carole King.
I like too many of his songs. Telephone Line is
the five-chord trick, and he's got the telephone
sounds on there, he's changing voices, and all of
us must have experienced making that call. It
just evokes that emotion and puts you right
there, and he does that to me every time.
Bastard. My ticker starts going and I get
romantic. And it gets schmaltzy, I suppose, and
as much as I don't want to get schmaltzy, he
makes me feel 'aw, it's lovely'.
I'd love to think I was as good as Jeff Lynne,
but no ****ing way. That's fooling oneself. It's
only him and The Beatles, really."
