It started with the single "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" which wasn't constantly on the radio in early 1975. Basically I couldn't get it out of my head. I had just started teaching college. Met the girl I would go out with for the next six years and ELO kinda soundtracked that period for me with this album. I was really into concept albums. They were like audio films. I would listen to them from start to finish. I guess I got into that from listening to The Kinks run of concept albums in the early seventies. But really everyone was doing it. Bowie. Pink Floyd..everyone.
At the time ELO were not big yet. So this was like an underground record. They were cool with their "I Am The Walrus" strings and Beatle melodies in a world where the Beatles no longer existed. Listening to the album now I can hear the fifties rock and roll roots on some of the songs. The voice seemed blurred. I actually went to see them at the Myer Music Bowl and it wasn't just the production..Jeff Lynne seemed to have a blurred voice. For that one, we sat outside the fence until the last 3 songs and then poured into the bowl. A tactic we used on many a gig.
When I started writing songs our guitarist said my songs sounded like a cross between ELO and Leonard Cohen. I took that as a compliment. Depressing lyrics on top of pop melodies. Fair enough.
Oh, I must say I've always liked the cover too. The Wizard of Oz was a film we all went and saw in the early seventies because it was very "trippy'
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