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Post by fireonhigh on Jan 30, 2019 8:45:02 GMT
Surrender, Latitude 88 North, The Quick and the Daft, Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Tears in Your Life, Helpless and Love Changes All.
Firstly sorry this has been asked before but.....
We know a little about these songs thanks to Jeff's extensive (!!) linear notes on the respective remastered and compilations albums they appear on. But what else do we know about these beauties?
In my mind I can hear parts that sound like they are from the 'original' ELO period but then there are parts that sound like the more recent style of Jeff's work and other parts that sound out of keeping for the period they come from i.e. Surrender's saxophone sounds out of keeping for the ANWR period (or was this a recent Jeff addition to the song?). I've heard somewhere that the Quick and The Daft were originally two songs
What are the histories of these songs?
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Post by ShardEnder on Jan 30, 2019 14:16:55 GMT
Of the songs you mentioned, we know little about Surrender except that it was supposedly written for an ill-fated movie back in 1976, though I have to agree with your assessment that the saxophone and reverb style is far more consistent with Jeff's later production work. Saying that, maybe he recorded this song from scratch, using a vintage demo as his guide? The lack of many lyrics beyond a single verse and chorus is typical of his embryonic home takes, so it's possible he never developed this much further.
As for Latitude 88 North, Jeff mentioned an early set of lyrics over this track about a musician travelling the world, which seems awfully similar to the interim rewrite between Motor Factory and Rock 'N' Roll Is King - could it be that this was an idea he'd use as a placeholder on multiple occasions, yet never found a vehicle for until more recently?
Grieg's Piano Concerto In A Minor (or Ballbuster, as it says on the original tape box!) was from the first of a two-day "flying visit" to Wisseloord Studios in February '82, while Tears In Your Life and Helpless were outtakes from the main batch of sessions for the Secret Messages album, which took place from August-December the same year.
Apart from the strings, it seems as if much of Helpless was recorded at some point long after this period, likely bespoke for inclusion on the Flashback retrospective. By contrast, Tears In Your Life is something Jeff spoke of only being able to complete with the advent of Pro Tools, and the original '82 version was supposedly sung through a vocoder rather than in tight harmony, though you can hear a short piece where the original vocal may still be intact.
Speaking of Tears In Your Life, it's clear that Jeff loves nothing more than to recycle what he feels is a good melody. Just as Video! borrowed elements of Beatles Forever, you can tell his frustrations with Tears In Your Life led to him reworking this into the instrumental After All, only to then revisit the basic idea on Sirens and Night Calls before returning to the original idea again.
Love Changes All has an interesting story, as it's clearly a Zoom-era recording, though it's also quite obviously based on the instrumental piece heard during the end credits of Xanadu. According to archivist Rob Caiger, this exists in the vaults under the name of Xanadu Overture, and you can definitely hear the connection between these two songs, despite their being separated by two decades.
Finally for now, you're right that The Quick And The Daft was edited together using two different vintage leftovers; one from the Out Of The Blue era, with the other allegedly being closer to a Discovery sessions outtake.
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Post by fireonhigh on Jan 30, 2019 20:22:12 GMT
Thanks for that info. All very interesting stuff.
I wonder if we will ever find out any more on Surrender, Latitude 88 North and the two songs The Quick and the Daft?
For me Surrender does sound more like a new recording based on a demo
I'm still confused by Latitude 88 North and when that first came into being. It sounds more 'traditional' ELO than other tracks issued (except for the drumming!!) it doesn't feel at home with the OOTB album (maybe again it's Jeff's newer style production doing this?) and I thought I may have read somewhere that Richard was involved.
It would be interesting to know how far Jeff got with both 'The Quick' and 'The Daft' and why he lost interest in them. Given that the drums sound like Bev playing, and there are Louis Clark sounding like strings playing, these must have got almost to the vocal stage of Jeff's song construction. I wonder which song related to which period.
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 30, 2019 22:39:31 GMT
Surrender was issued as a one sided promo single and pressed by none other than our Mel! (so I guess Jeff didn't fall out with him...)
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Post by ShardEnder on Jan 31, 2019 17:07:28 GMT
Richard's involvement with Latitude 88 North supposedly extended to him suggesting "it's like" as a short bridge to the chorus - without this relatively minor difference, I have to agree with Jeff's comment that its lyrics scan more like a travel itinerary than a character's thoughts put into song. (For another example of what Richard's economy could bring to a track, I'd encourage you to read Dave Morgan's recollections on the creation of Princeton from the Earthrise project...)
Although we don't have any further information about The Quick And The Daft, I suspect the eventual final title was created much later. These two outtakes were probably dropped early into the making of their respective parent albums, and it wouldn't surprise me if Jeff developed many similar ideas, only to abandon them before adding vocals. For all we know, he might have attempted to put words to these and given up. I bet a lot of such instrumental fragments exist in the vaults!
In terms of Mel Gale's small independent pressing plant being responsible for reproducing the Surrender single years after he parted ways with ELO, that was purely coincidental, but I'd still be interested to see whether the cellist remembers the original vintage outtake or any others he might have played on, for that matter. Of course, that's highly unlikely when you consider only the core band members were typically called in for later studio sessions, Mik being a rare exception.
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 31, 2019 19:54:40 GMT
I can't believe that Jeff didn't know beforehand about Mel,someone must have informed him that Mel was in charge there....
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Post by ShardEnder on Jan 31, 2019 20:29:57 GMT
I forget the exact number, but I seem to recall there was an announcement* that the Surrender 7" single was to be a limited release, so it wouldn't surprise me if this ended up being contracted out to a smaller pressing plant by someone with no knowledge of its owner playing with ELO in the past - it's one of those "small world" type scenarios that I can very much believe happening, especially as Mel himself later confirmed the story.
*The closest I can find to a possible figure comes from something Rob Caiger has said on multiple occasions about how any new physical title will only be produced if he can show there is interest for sales of at least 1,000 units.
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 31, 2019 23:31:54 GMT
I wonder if Jeff and Mel ever met during this process?
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Post by ShardEnder on Feb 1, 2019 0:54:37 GMT
I know that Jeff would personally deliver the stereo tapes to mastering engineers back in the day, and he'd even occasionally make changes to songs as they were being cut directly to disc (Telephone Line is one notable example I can think of from memory). I've no idea whether he continued this practice as late as the pressing of the Surrender 7" single, but I'm sure we'd have heard something by now if a reunion with Mel took place. Also, it seems as if Jeff has always given more attention to how the albums turned out - when it comes to promotional tracks and the often unique edits contained on many of these, he'll often leave such decisions up to whatever label is releasing each title. If you're still in any doubt as to how little Jeff cares for what exactly went on singles up to a point, he wasn't aware of the ELO Megamix until this was already on shelves! Quite how that managed to become a thing without the primary songwriter's permission being sought in advance is a mystery I'll likely never be able to solve, with the situation being made far worse if you consider there were plenty of alternate mixes from the Balance Of Power sessions that could have been used as potential b-sides instead, or even the multiple Secret Messages 2LP casualties then yet to be heard by fans.
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