Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne wrote "Don't Bring Me Down" as a last-second addition to the "Discovery" album in 1979.
"It's a great big galloping ball of distortion," he said of the song in a 2001 re-mastered re-release of the album on compact disc. "I wrote it at the last minute, 'cos I felt there weren't enough loud ones on the album. This was just what I was after."
Loud was proud when Jet Records executives made "Don't Bring Me Down" the second release from the "Discovery" album after "Shine A Little Love" had made its impact by hitting No. 8.
When ELO first came to the music scene in 1973, it was one of the most unique bands to ever be put together. Lynne, who had been part of a group called The Move and left to start his own band, was a huge Beatles fan. The album that impressed young Mr. Lynne most from his favorite band was the landmark "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. It was one of the most experimental albums in the history of music and it helped define what Lynne was looking for in making his own band.
He wanted a basic rock 'n roll band that included a guitarist and lead vocalist (himself), along with a drummer, bass player and a keyboardist. But he also wanted a string section behind the band playing. Lynne was a huge fan of classical music, but he didn't know how he could incorporate strings behind a rock band until he heard that fateful "Sgt. Pepper's" album.
He co-founded Electric Light Orchestra with Bev Bevan and Roy Wood in 1970 and started building their band. Bevan played drums and Wood was a singer-guitarist like Lynne who could play instruments such as the oboe, clarinet, bassoon and cello. And the trio brought in a pair of "orchestra" add-ons: Steve Woolam on violin and Bill Hunt on the French horn and hunting horn.
Originally, ELO was a side project from The Move until The Move finally called it a day, which didn't happen until 1972. But while all that was happening, Wood became disillusioned. He and his former Move partner Lynne began seeing things differently on the direction of the band. And Wood saw a burgeoning glam rock scene that he wanted to be a part of, so in mid-1972, Wood left ELO to go form the group Wizzard, which would be a little like what Lynne was doing with ELO, but only with a harder rock sound.
Meanwhile, Lynne had to replace not only Wood, but Woolam, who suddenly passed away in 1971. So he made the Electric Light Orchestra "bigger." He brought in Mike de Albuquerque to play bass guitar and he expanded the orchestra part of the group by bringing in cellists Hugh McDowell, Andy Craig, Colin Walker and Mike Edwards and violinists Wilfred Gibson and Mik Kaminski. Lynne also brought in a new keyboardist-synthesizer player to replace Hunt, who left in 1972, named Richard Tandy.
The Electric Light Orchestra released the self-titled debut to little fanfare, though "10538 Overture" did get some airplay on rock radio. In 1973, the second album, "ELO 2," was released and featured the rousing eight-minute remake of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," played behind the backdrop of the original combined with Ludwig von Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony. It was released in the late spring of 1973 and missed hitting the Top 40, peaking at No. 42.
It wouldn't be until 1975 when ELO finally took off. With Kelly Groucutt replacing de Albuquerque as bass player and Melvyn Gale added as a cello player and pianist, ELO scored their first Top 40 hit in February with "Can't Get It Out Of My Head," which would peak at No. 9. Later in the year, they hit the Top 40 with "Evil Woman," which would become a No. 10 hit by February 1976.
Suddenly, ELO became an album-rock act, going gold with"Face The Music," then going platinum in 1977 with the album "A New World Order," which featured the Top 10 hit "Telephone Line." In late 1977, the band released the double album opus "Out Of The Blue" and saw that album not only go platinum again, but would sell over 10 million copies worldwide, sparked by three Top 40 hits "Turn To Stone," "Sweet Talkin' Woman" and "Mr. Blue Sky."
But while "Out Of The Blue" was a piece of art, some may have looked at the 1979 follow-up album, "Discovery," as a piece of disco. Many of the tracks on the album were of the dance-disco variety, prompting Tandy to agree and call the album in a tongue-in-cheek manner, "Disco Very."
While the album continued to use strings that made the band famous in the first place, Lynne also wanted to have a rock presence as well. He felt the strings of the band had drowned out any guitar work or bass guitar work or even drum work the band had done. After all, the band was the focal point of the group, but was lost because of the strings and the horns. By the end of the recording, the presence of any string work of Kaminski, Gale and McDowell were not as apparent, and by the time the album was finished and sent off for shipping, Lynne had set the trio free, divorcing himself from the sound that defined the band.
On "Shine A Little Love," Tandy's synthesizer stands out the most in a dance-music way. It was a nice way to open the "Discovery" album as the lead singer.
When it came to the second release, "Don't Bring Me Down" was the choice for a number of reasons. Lynne explained there had not been a "loud" ELO song in a long while, mostly due to the strings drowning out anything that might be loud. With the strings all but gone on this track, Lynne let the sound be raucous between his guitar work and Tandy's Yamaha CS80 synthesizer as well as his piano.
The song opens with Bevan's raucous, rhythmic drumming accompanied by Lynne "counting in" the song, which he does with a searing guitar played above that thunderous backbeat, followed by Lynne's well-known lead vocals.
Lynne's guitar is highlighted on the song and that drum beat that Bevan played would ultimately be looped throughout the recording to make things better for the drummer. The end of the song with Lynne's final word "down" echoing, followed by the sound of a metal door closing. That door, according to Lynne, was at the Musicland Studio in Munich, West Germany where the band was recording the album.
As Jet was ready to release "Don't Bring Me Down" as the next single, it got a boost in a weird way: The band dedicated the song to the famous satellite Skylab was about to fall to the Earth for its final destination, which turned out to be Western Australia.
Released July 24, 1979, "Don't Bring Me Down" was selling copies in the music shops and disc jockeys everywhere played the song. And it may have been the reason why "Don't Bring Me Down" made a powerful debut on the Hot 100 at No. 41 on August 4, 1979. In other words, it was going to make a big Top 40 debut the next week, just no one knew where exactly.
But on August 11, 1979, everyone soon found out when they got their copy of Billboard magazine that week -- it had rocketed into the Top 40 at No. 18.
Yes, No. 18! It was the highest Top 40 debut for any song since Wings had debuted at No. 17 in April 1978 with "With A Little Luck." That song would ultimately get to No. 1 six weeks later.
For ELO, this was easily the highest debuting Top 40 hit of their careers. The highest any of ELO's songs debuted in the Top 40 prior to "Don't Bring Me Down" was both "Sweet Talkin' Woman" and "Shine A Little Love," both debut hits at a more modest No. 32.
By zapping up at No. 18, you'd think "Don't Bring Me Down" would be the band's first No. 1 hit. After a four-notch climb the next week, it entered the Top 10 at No. 6 on August 25, 1979.
But "Don't Bring Me Down" slowed up quite a bit. It moved up to No. 5, then to No. 4 ... and that's where the song would tap out for two straight weeks. The band's 11th Top 40 hit would spend 11 weeks in the Top 40 before falling away. It's how strong The Knack's No. 1 hit, "My Sharona," was at the time as it spent six weeks at No. 1 and would be the No. 1 hit of the year.
Though considered a disappointment, "Don't Bring Me Down" would still become the band's biggest hit ever with its No. 4 peak.
Maybe spurred on by its synthesized and guitar-driven disco sound, "Discovery" would sell two million copies, spurred by four Top 40 hits, the last two being "Confusion" and "Last Train To London."
One of the biggest mysteries of "Don't Bring Me Down" for years has been in the two middle parts of the record where Lynne expounds, "Don't bring me down, groooose." Some have interpreted it as a hidden message, but Lynne said he was saying, "Groooose," which really was a nonsense word. Some said it may have been "Bruce" and one night years later, Lynne would answer the misnomer by singing "Bruce" during those times in the song.
The original ELO began to dwindle down and by 1986, it was the trio of Lynne, Bevan and Tandy recording their last Top 40 hit, "Calling America" for their album, "Balance Of Power." There have been a number of reincarnations of ELO, but they aren't the same without Lynne involved.
In 2014, Lynne teamed up with various musicians to bring back the 1970s sound that was the heyday of the band to record "Alone In The Universe." It was a Top 25 album in this country and a No. 4 CD in Lynne's native England. And American fans wait for the band to finally come to this country and perform again.
Certainly one of the songs they will do is the rousing "Don't Bring Me Down." It was a change of pace for the band in 1979.
And a pretty high Top 40 debut hit to boot.
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