Has Jeff Lynne ever discussed his work with the Idle Race in any depth?

Was listening to the two Jeff Lynne Idle Race albums recently and again marvelling at how good they were, and how strong the songwriting was considering Lynne's youth at the time. But then I was started thinking how hardly anything is known about the background to the songs he wrote in this period.

I know he's hardly mister outspoken at the best of times, but I was wondering if there was any chance that Lynne had ever spoken about his work with the Idle Race at any length. The only time I've seen him discuss the band was in the 2012 documentary where he said it was a thrill to see his name on the label of 'Imposters of Life's Magazine'.. until he saw they'd spelt his name wrong. But is there anything else?

 

To the best of my knowledge, no, and not because he's ashamed of it, but simply because no one has ever asked him about it. When you think about it, not a whole lot of people who's popularity peaked in the 1970s ever talked much about what they did in the 1960s. David Bowie and Elton John are two other obvious examples.

 

I don't believe Jeff is ashamed of what turned out to be his first professional group, but at the same time, they weren't big enough for most interviewers to bring the subject of their existence up. If I ever got the opportunity to ask him a few questions, I'd be interested to know more about the lessons he tried giving a young Brian May when The Idle Race shared the bill for a couple of shows with pre-Queen outfit Smile in 1967... Even though he's never considered himself a "guitar hero" in the traditional sense, there was a period when Jeff's playing definitely caught the attention of his contemporaries, with Marc Bolan someone who gravitated to him for a while, the two actually recording together on several occasions.

 

Interesting.... hench The Idle Race covering Bolan's 'Debora', I presume?

The May connection is fascinating too .. would it be too much of a stretch to hear a faint echo of the trebly precise theatrical guitar lines of 'Imposters' in Mays signature style?

 

The first time I heard Imposters I thought "ah, so Brian May lifted his guitar style from this!" I love Brian May, but it's pretty obvious

 

'Imposters of Life's Magazine' is overall a such a bizarre record... only in 1967 would a pop band release such a downright weird song as their debut single! I think it's fair to say it was possibly a little too eccentric for pop fans of the time to latch on to. Perhaps the Idle Race were encouraged to release a song like that as a single in the wake of The Move's chart success with non romantic songs about freaky subject matter, but 'Night of Fear' and 'I Can Hear the Grass Grow' had more digestible hooks and an accessible rock band backing, compared to 'Imposters' which has this highly strung paranoidly skittish quality that seems to predict the theatrics of glam acts like Sparks and Queen, and even new wave like Devo.

I wonder what Jeff was thinking of when he wrote the lyrics to the song; again, maybe it's a stretch, but to me they seem to predict the pervasive celebrity culture of the 21st century. I bet Jeff would be very self deprecating about any import the lyric had were he asked about it today, but sometimes I think certain artists of the 60s were able to tap subconsciously into a well of precognition of the future...

Don't get me started on 'Days of the Broken Arrows'! What an even more crazy bizzare song! It contains worlds! I would love to know what the thought process was behind such an odd track.

 

For whatever reason, he was obviously quite taken with the Move's "Wild Tiger Woman" and decided to record a sound-alike record. I've always liked the little sneak-preview of "Turn To Stone" in the bridge.

 

I love The Idle Race and sometimes I find myself wondering if Lynne ever really topped the stuff he did on those two albums. Well, maybe he did, but The Birthday Party and Idle Race are absolutely brilliant all the same.

 

One of the more fascinating things I've learned about the Smile-Idle Race connection is that Brian was supposedly desperate to learn the "violin" trick Jeff used a lot in his earlier years, which he achieved by playing a string while wrapping his little finger around the volume knob of his '66 Telecaster to create swells. Due to the larger design of his own homemade Red Special, Brian wasn't able to emulate this, though it's clear he developed an alternate method of replicating the same effect by manipulating a volume pedal, as this can be heard in quite a few places on the first Queen albums, such as White Queen (As It Began). My understanding is that Jeff was himself mentored by Big Al Johnson, his predecessor in Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders.

Also, it should be noted that Steve Howe was taught a few of the same techniques through Yes co-producer Eddie Offord, who'd worked on the first Idle Race album. I wasn't aware of this until quite recently, but Jeff actually met Eddie again in late 1980, when a tape of demos intended for the next Yes project after Drama was exchanged, giving ELO's leader the inspiration he needed to pursue a new musical direction on Time. At this point, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes had initially planned to start work on another Buggles album that became Adventures In Modern Recording prior to the latter quitting to form Asia. If you want to hear a good example of Steve copying Jeff's distinctive style, parts of Into The Lens from Drama is a good example...

 

It would be great to get Jeff to speak in depth about anything! But the Idle Race stuff is especially interesting.

The songwriting on those albums is really unique. Many of the songs especially on the first album are of their time as far as psychedelic pop/rock goes and the general imagery of turn of the century style throwback is in line with stuff like Sgt. Pepper and the San Francisco type band names and stuff and all that. But the characters in the songs and the subjects are really specific and weird. I mean... "Skeleton and the Roundabout" is just bizarre. Freak shows! "The Lady Who Said She Could Fly" is tragic and really funny at the same time! "Lucky Man" and "I Like My Toys" are also very funny songs and also kind of tragic and bizarre. It's like an ode to weirdos and outsiders of the most extreme kind. It would be interesting to hear where the inspiration for such things came from.

As the years went by his songs became less and less specific to the point where they seem to be about really nothing specific at all. Just a general feeling. Which is ok... but he started off as a very different kind of lyricist. It would be cool to hear about that part of it too.

I know he kind of became a producer due to the general lack of interest in the band (similar to how Todd Rundgren started). But it would be cool to know more about that too.

 

Jeff's later work may have become more commercially-minded and vague lyrically (with greater reference to his personal life, even when things weren't going so well), but he could still channel his "Idle Race mode" as late as Hello My Old Friend, which is by far the most progressive thing he's written since the early years of ELO. I'd love for him to branch out a little once again, even if it's just within the confines of a few songs as opposed to being over a full album...

 

Great post, I totally agree. 'Mr Crow and Sir Norman' is another good one in that vein. Kind of like the fairy tale of the gingerbread man filtered through Victorian music hall, and the end is really affectingly sad. I always wonder what the rest of the band thought of this stuff, as before and after Jeff's stay in the group they did far more straightahead generic rock stuff. I can only think that the huge influence of The Beatles Sgt Pepper phase at the time must have meant they thought it was commercial enough to go along with.

'The Diary of Horace Wimp' from 1979 always seemed like a callback to this style of writing to me.

 

I've spoken to the great man about the "Race" many times. I love those records so much it's tough for me not to ask. His favourite track from that period is "The morning sunshine".

 

'Mr Crow and Sir Norman' is awesome.

"Now come on Mr. Crow my dear
We'd better have this gottle o' geer"

 

Wow, thanks for the reply and info! Very jealous (as prob most on this thread are!) of your working relationship with Mr Lynne. No pressure, but any other comments you've managed to procure from the great man regarding the Idle Race's songs that you'd feel comfortable sharing here would be greatly appreciated! (And I respect that you're well within you're rights to keep such discussions private, but I might as well chance my arm!)

 

"Days of the Broken Arrows" is my favorite Idle Race track. Surprised it didn't do anything in the UK. Like the two BBC versions of it, too. Love the guitar in "Hurry Up John," but the vocals are kind of a letdown. Compiled my own Idle Race BBC CD-R from various sources.

 

On a related note, the classic Idle Race line-up was reunited at last night's ELO concert.

 

I think that they are in the same order as the above photo:

 

They are indeed!

 

There have been quite a few familiar faces spotted in the crowds at recent ELO shows (including Roy Wood, David Scott-Morgan, Steve Gibbons and all three other members of The Idle Race prior to this latest backstage reunion), but forget about that - just check out Jeff's grin!

 

It's great Jeff's still on good terms with all the other members and they're all still up and about - shame they couldn't do a group interview!

 

(I found this thread through the search function),
and I my reaction when I heard the Idle Race records (CDs more specifically) was the same. The lyrics are different. Mr. Lynne played more securely towards a chart formula with ELO. Maybe it was influenced by the sixties, and no longer felt like that style of imaginative ideas again. Listening to the Idle Race was a pleasant surprise indeed.

 

I first learned about the Idle Race when I participated in (and won) a radio station game/contest where they played a song backwards and the first person to call in and correctly identify it would win an album. The backward song was "For What It's Worth" which was pretty easy to figure out by hearing the signature guitar part. But the album I won was a Promo Copy of The Birthday Party by the Idle Race. I enjoyed the album, but not one of my friends had ever heard of the group and most thought the songs were very silly because they dealt with childish topics. Also, the album cover was very wierd with paisley print all over it. Probably about 10 years later, I had a garage sale and sold the album, so I don't have it any longer.

But recently, the Departments of Transportation in Wisconsin and Minnesota have gone absolutely crazy with putting in Roundabouts everywhere. There is an intersection in Wisconsin that has 4 roundabouts on the same road all within about 1/4 mile! I find myself singing "climb aboard my roundabout" to myself everytime I encounter one of these goofy intersections.

 

I started off in the whole Move/ELO etc family tree around the El Dorado period and worked my way back to The Move, Roy Wood and so forth. Along the way I found a copy of the Idle Race's Birthday Party (similar to the one below, a 1976 reissue I believe). I was getting into Slade and doing a similar thing with them. I got a US copy of their first album as Ambrose Slade called Ballzy (Beginnings in the UK). brought it home and started playing it and after a cover version of Steppenwolf's "Everybody's Next One", (which I was very familiar with being a Steppenwolf fan), a song called "Knocking Nails Into My House" came on. I thought "That sounds like a goofy Idle Race song", so I look at the writing credit, sure enough it was written by Jeff Lynne. I pull out my Idle Race album and the song is not on it. I'd never seen another Idle Race album at that time so I didn't know if it might be a track on another album or what. I think what I've figured out since then is that "Knocking Nails..." was a 1968 B-side to "Skeleton and the Roundabout". I was just amazed at how much of Jeff's/Idle Race's style passed thru the Slade filter who seemed very eclectic in their choice of material on their first album.

 

Discovered this page today, which features in depth background on every song Jeff Lynne has been invovled with, with quotes from participants gleaned from fanzines where possible.. lots of song by song writings on the various Idle Races songs in the 60s section:

Jeff Lynne Song Database - 1960s Songs