Calling America--Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)

Electric Light Orchestra is probably a pretty forgotten band by now. When I was in high school, though, they were big and their album was one of the first and most-played records in my small collection. They were melodic, croony, poppy, and classically based, with layered background vocals and lots of time changes. Lightweight stuff at first listen, but then Jeff Lynne's sharp lyrics start to cut through the cushions, and when the cushions and syrup all wore away they could cut glass. I've been meaning to get some of his music for years, and now it's on YouTube.

ELO was the background music when I got acquainted with a feral, beautiful Catholic girl in her parents' living room after school, when I met her for the first time in front of my locker and she invited me to walk her home. Her mom was never more than 20 feet away from the couch, fixing supper and doing dishes in the kitchen. It seemed really bad then, yet seems pretty wholesome now. So there's a general sense of indulgence, sin, and twelve-part harmony wrapped up in ELO for me, paradoxically innocent, probably similar for many others who share my demographic space and time. I was a kid, and was lucky to survive. (Edit: I meant to say, "Lucky to survive Catholic girls." But since I married one, I'm not sure that's really the case.)

ELO's most popular songs were probably Do Ya ("Do ya do ya want my love?"), Sweet Talkin' Woman ("You've gotta slow down, sweet talkin' woman."), and It's A Living Thing ("It's a given thing, what a terrible thing to lose.") They had a song, one of their last hits, which makes me a lot less bashful about having listened to them. Calling America. The lyrics, at least, seem to stand the test. People were trying to reach this country with metaphor even back then, and whether he meant to be or not, Jeff Lynne was ahead of his time:

(Somebody...)
Told her that there was a place like heaven
Cross the water on a 747
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Pretty soon she's really got the notion
Of flying out across the big blue ocean
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Well talk is cheap on satellite
But all I get is...(static!)
Information, I'm still here;
Re-dial on automatic.

Calling America (can't get a message through)
Calling America (that's what she said to do)
Calling America (that's where she has to be)
Calling America (she left a number for me)
Calling America.

But I'm just talking to a satellite
Twenty thousand miles up in the sky each night
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

All I had to do was pick up the phone
I'm out in space, trying to talk to someone
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

She left a number I could call
But no one's there, no one at all
There must be something going wrong
That number just rings on and on.

Said she'd call when she'd been gone a while
Guess she's missing me across the miles
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Calling America (can't get a message through)
Calling America (that's what she said to do)
Calling America (that's where she has to be)
Calling America (she left a number for me)
Calling America, Calling America, Calling America...