Electric Light Orchestra – When I Was a Boy Review

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When an artist puts their life on the line for the sake of a song, they had best pray it is well-received. If an audience turns away from it, if a listener does not connect, then it is not a failure of the experience but of memory. Jeff Lynne used Electric Light Orchestra as a vehicle for reflection. There were strong moments like When I Was a Boy and pitiful attempts at tapping into the making of new memories with Time of Our Life on From Out of Nowhere. Nonetheless, these felt like emotive basics which were a direct contrast to the primitive but fun soft-rock storytelling of earlier efforts. There has never been much depth in the lyrics from ELO. They are more placeholders for bright guitar spots and orchestral magic. Production is what Lynne excels at, though even that struggles on When I Was a Boy, an Alone in the Universe single which has aged as badly as the rest of the album.  

That poorly aged sound is not because of the context of the song or the return to the stage for Lynne. Both are exceptional examples of his desire to please an audience, even if it puts him out of his comfort zone. A demand for ELO was heard and responded to. It’s as simple as that. But simplicity in that form is likeable because it gets to its point far quicker than a complex reason for a return. When I Was a Boy is the hand-wringing emotional fluff you would expect of a band needing to win over audiences, not from a group which had never lost the love. It serves its purpose as an opening track to a return album. When I Was a Boy positions Alone in the Universe as a light introduction to a new ELO tone. Soppiness is hardly the strongest style to rely on, but it would serve Lynne on his last two albums with the band.  

Plain rhyming structures and the early years influence on a seasoned musical career. It’s an inevitability. Everyone has their origins of influence, but making them sound interesting to a passing listener is the real battle. Those dedicated ELO listeners will lap this up because they see it as a chance to peek into the personal life of Lynne. It’s a barebones song which suggests Lynne’s desire to make music was moved by his disinterest in traditional work. There is no doubting the honesty with which Lynne writes, but the plainer style means it is harder to connect with his heartfelt message. His love of music becomes clear on Armchair Theatre, his solo album which at least doesn’t have to live up to the expectations set by ELO. Those lyrical frustrations are made somewhat worse by the miserable production.  

Muddy-sounding mixes, which seem to be a misfire from Lynne, who has worked on better projects since. He offered The Beatles’ Now and Then a better mix than he does his own work. It’s his ear for production which wins out often, though When I Was a Boy, and the rest of Alone in the Universe, for that matter, suffer greatly. Romanticising the early years is an inevitability for the veteran songwriter who has nothing more to say on modern times. That much is a real shame, but Lynne has never truly been a cultural commentator. He writes of love and loss with the same consistency as an escalator trip. You’ll get to where you’re going, but there’s little delight in the journey. Those extra bells and whistles are what make the difference, something sorely lacking on When I Was a Boy.