The Electric Light Orchestra carried on where The Move left off – same personnel, same sound, with added ‘classical’ trimmings. Much more to my taste when Roy Wood was still there at the start.
Here’s a funny thing. The Move had their final hit with California Man in May 1972, by which time they were a trio of Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan and had already become the Electric Light Orchestra. Two months later this became their first single under the new name – but the song had actually been written (by Lynne) and recorded as a B-side for The Move.
After Lynne went home that night, Wood, an avid collector of musical instruments, began tinkering with the song, overdubbing extra parts – including some Hendrix-style riffs on a cheap Chinese cello he had just bought. The next day, Lynne listened to them and suggested including them on the track.
Wood later recalled: “I ended up recording around 15 of these and, as the instrumentation built up, it was beginning to sound like some monster heavy metal orchestra.” It’s juist a shame he didn’t use that name for the new band – The Monster Heavy Metal Orchestra would have been great.
Just as they had with California Man, both Wood and Lynne sang on this song, which I now learn is about an escaped prisoner – hence the number, which Lynne took from seeing 1053 on the mixing console in the studio, with Wood suggesting an additional 8 to fit the song’s melody better.
Wood actually left ELO during this song’s chart run, when it reached No.9 (peaking two places lower than California Man) and he would return to the charts later in the year with even more hair, and a lot more make-up, in Wizzard.
Meanwhile, 10538 Overture eventually ended up as a B-side after all, when a live version was released as the flip side of ELO’s Evil Woman in 1975 – and the riff was later sampled by Paul Weller for his 1995 song The Changingman.
Is it me or does that riff sound a lot like Dear Prudence?