Poll: What is the freakiest song of the rock era? One that scares you silly?

Jeff Lynne is a bona fide genius. Modest too, unlike many of his contemporaries without even half his talent. One of the all time greats.

I was an ELO fan from the moment I first heard "Can’t Get It Out of My Head" in 1974. I had a black tee shirt with the ELO logo on it back in the day. I love all my ELO albums. Thanks Professor!

What always blows me away about Sweet Talkin' Woman is the pre-chorus breakdown, the part where they sing "She's gone so long...what can I do..." The layered vocals and musical elements of those few seconds show more musical effort than an entire current day Spotify top 10. I miss the era when music composition really mattered in rock music, and Out Of The Blue is a masterpiece.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra. His productions are so rich and lush with a blending of genres, that I can easily listen to his albums for weeks at a time without getting bored or tired of his songs. And “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” is definitely one of my many favorites.

What do you get when you play country music backwards. You get your wife, dog house and truck back.

“Fire On High” is one of my favorite ELO songs. Great instrumental work.

I was one of those kids riding the Gyrosphere - the scrambler ride in Seabreeze - in the 1980s with "Fire on High" blasting from the speakers, and the light show flashing as we were flung around through the darkness - it was one of my favorite memories, and every time I hear the song, I remember it all over again. Thanks for for shout out, Professor! ELO was my first favorite band, and they have been my favorite throughout the years. No matter how many times I hear "Sweet Talkin' Woman," I never get tired of it, and that is the genius of Jeff Lynn. Also thanks for the episode - that opening of Fire on High has always given me the shivers, but I never knew what they were really saying.😄

I remember those days. They claimed if you played Another One Bites The Dust backwards, it enougraged the listeners to "smoke marijuana". Stairway To Heaven played backwards allegedly said, "Here's to my sweet Satan". That whole era was ridiculous!!

I have so many stories involving ELO.. First time I heard them was January 1975.. I was in my friends car and we were smoking a joint and doing spin outs on the ice at Orchard beach parking lot (bronx).My friend slipped this 8 track into his 8 track player and asked me what i thought of this album. As soon as I heard the Overture of Eldorado I said wow this sounds like the Wizard of Oz..My friend freaked out and showed me the cover on the 8 track.. We were both like Whoa…!!! but again we were pretty high… The song Fire on High was my favorite headphones song.. I would be in my room, lights shut, door closed…. listen to this song and freak myself out.. I must have turned around to look at my door 20-30 times.. but my favorite ELO song is One Summer Dream.. This song is so haunting to me.. It’s like.. so familiar.. I feel like this song reaches something familiar in my soul… just love it.. Saw Jeff Lynne’s ELO live and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Amy Langley (cello player) and her sister Rosie ( violin ) both so gorgeous

A New World Record was the first album i was ever truly mad about. I don't know why it appealed to my 15 year old self, at the time, but i just loved it and played it obsessively. Saw them in 78 with a good school friend who, very sadly, was killed in a road traffic accident a couple of years later. So i always have a regretful smile when i hear them . Out of the Blue was great too.

Thanks for covering the Electric Light Orchestra and Jeff Lynne.

ELO's TIME is one of the great concept albums of all time. Ticket to the Moon haunts me to this day. I love it.

It still hasn’t changed. People can be scared so easily. My 68 year old dad was FURIOUS when he read my lyrics to Motley Crue’s Wild Side in 1987. He told me the other day, “I’ve always loved Motley Crue.” I was thinking … bullsh!t!

ELO is one of my favorite 70's bands. They had a great, unique sound and style all of their own. I have the Out Of The Blue album which contains both of these songs. Never heard this story before. Thanks, Professor.

Beavis and Butthead summed it up the best, talking over a Take That video. "Is this one of those satanic records?" " Yeah if you play it backwards, its says 'this sucks" 😂

ELO were so good, I never could understand how they weren't more popular than groups with half of their talent all over the charts.

I bought the 45rpm of this single on clear purple vinyl when I was 9 years old. I still own it. I was entranced by "Fire on High" when I flipped over to the B side. I must have listened to it a hundred times in a row when I first heard it. It's still a stunning track all these years later. Jeff Lynne is an amazing writer, musician and producer. The world is a better place because of him.

The back masking part of this reminded me of the tail out groove (the groove that goes from the last song to the center groove on vinyl) on Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever" album - just one line reversed. When you spun the record backwards, it was Tom's voice simply saying, "You're ruining your needle" 😂😂😂

Oh, you did it now Professor... Fire on High is my favorite headphone song of all time! So much going on there, it's incredible... Listened to it endlessly in my sixth grade year and still go big time air guitar when I hear it!

We watch your show all the time and really enjoy it. Just wanted to let you know that ELO's Fire on High was the theme song on CBS Sports Spectacular and not ABC's Wide World of Sports. Thanks for your great shows and interviews!

Wow. Mind blown about “Do you believe in love.” No wonder it’s 1 of 3 of my favorite Huey Lewis songs. Saw Jeff Lynne in concert right before pandemic, one of the best concerts I’ve seen.

The guitar portion of Fire On High was used extensively as background music for several local sports highlights and score shows, not just Wide World of Sports. Great recap, professor!

My favorite artist. Electric Light Orchestra were so far ahead of their time that you can still hear their influence on music that was recorded decades later. I do remember spinning Fire on High backwards to hear "the music is reversible, but time isn't" bit. Probably did some damage to my turntable in the process, but it was worth it.

Yes to a future episode featuring the great album ‘Secret Messages’ - particularly its story as a double album reduced to a single by the record company, casting aside Lynne’s best latter day track “Hello, My Old Friend” and still missing Beatles tribute song “Beatles Forever”.

Please do an episode on secret messages. ELO is one of my all time favorites!

My dad was a Baptist preacher in the south during all the satanic panic. I remember him bringing guest in to talk to us kids about the dangers of Rock and Roll. I also remember sitting in the back snickering at them when they talked about it influencing us subliminally. It only served to make us more interested in listening to those songs.

I swear Mutt Lange has to be one of the most important influencers of music alive. He has been winning Grammys and producing hits in five different decades. The artists he has recorded with is a who's who of the greatest of all time!

GO ELO! First album I EVER bought was Discovery by ELO. I still have it... 45 years later.

Thanks for the recent attention you’ve given to Jeff Lynne. It’s well deserved as he is being re-evaluated as a musical genius, even by his harshest 1970s critics. I hope you get to interview him someday. One correction: Fire On High was used as the CBS Sports Spectacular’s theme song not Wide World Of Sports.

It was about 1979. My uncle, knowing I am a Queen fan, said “You have to listen to this” and pulled out an album from his collection, dusted it off, and played it. Mystifying sounds came out of the speakers along with the spoken words: “The dreamer, the unwoken fool…” The first 30 seconds of ELO’s Eldorado album, along with its mythological and medieval themes mixed with symphonic Chuck Berry rock, had me hooked for a lifetime. BTW, I asked my Uncle if I could borrow the album and he happily loaned it to me…I finally returned it last year🫣. Sorry, Uncle Tom and thank you for a lifetime of musical influence!

My first ELO album was Eldorado, wore it out. Out of the blue was phenomenal. I finally saw Jeff Lynne's ELO IN 2018, ELO was on my bucket list 😊

ELO was mystic, their music has an incredible effect bringing memories from the past up. They were Outliers, like the Wizard of Oz movie, decades ahead of their time, a great anomaly.

"Turn to Stone" was one that was played a ton by my older siblings. I was only like 5 or 6 but that one especially left an impact.

‘Secret Messages’ is well worth its own show, probably the last of the great ELO albums following on the heels of ‘Time’ (my favourite). The ‘Balance of Power’ album comes across as a compilation of songs that never made the cut. After that ELO was really no longer.

I just saw Jeff in San Diego for vets aide! I flew from Ohio to California. It was worth it ELO has been my favorite band since I was a kid and I'm only 24 so it was a once in a lifetime thing. I love all their songs I can sing them all. Thanks for a great episode

I was in elementary school when the satanic panic began. In my area of California, both "Hotel California" and "Stairway to Heaven" were rumored to be satanic, not only when played backwards, but also when played forward. However, their popularity still was off the charts. All the talk about satanic messages didn't do anything to persuade anyone I knew not to purchase the backwards masking songs and albums. Instead, it increased sales as most of us became more fascinated by the rumors. At that age, we enjoyed scary movies, scary stories, and scary rumors about our favorite music and bands. While I believe some of the satanic panic was stoked by televangelists, I think some of the marketing agents jumped on board when they saw profits could be made. Interesting episode, Professor.

I had a friend that believed the controversy and kind of panicked when he learned I was an ELO fan. Later I started playing certain tracks backwards just to hear the silly messages.

Thank you; I stumbled over this episode and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can still recall the first time I heard "Fire on High" because my friend was showing off his new, pricey speakers. It was so clean and penetrating that I believe it formed a permanent groove in my brain.

Another reason why out of the blue is one of my favorite albums of all time. Also both songs remind me why I can never figure out what my favorite ELO song is. They just have too many good songs.

Fire on High received airplay where I grew especially late at night, and it creeped me out. So did the Beatles Revolution 9.

Jeff Lynne’s genius created in my opinion the best concept album since Pink Floyd’s “ DSOTM” with “ Time”. Time travel and how relationships are affected. Absolutely brilliant and one of my top ten all-timers.

My dad sat me down as a child…he gave me the album cover for “Face the Music” which has an electric chair on the front, and a CREEPY picture of the band on the back. He dropped the needle on song #1 of the record, “Fire on High”. The song started with the creepiest backmasking I’d ever heard…and that…mixed with the creepy cover terrified me. It is one of my favorite songs of all time…

Fire On High is one of my absolute favorite ELO tracks! I love the explosive intro, those absolutely haunting strings, the sudden tempo jumps, it's absolutely insane and I bloody love it! I played it to a friend of mine who spent 4 years studying music in university and it left him speechless! He said there was so much going on it blew him away how seamlessly it all fitted and flowed together

I'm a fan of ELO and have many of their albums. Christian rock banks also copped a lot of flak over their style of music. Petra included a backward message at the beginning of one of their songs which went along the lines of," why are you looking for the devil when you oughta be looking for the Lord." I attended two of their concerts back in the '80s and not only put on a brilliant show, but invited people to come up and give their hearts to Jesus.

Best album ever. And do cover Secret Messages. I spent many days listening to that album over and over since it was released. Nice to see new generations finding it and appreciating it.

The introduction music to Fire on High originally went by the working title 'The Nightmare'. Jeff Lynne asked the long time orchestral arranger Louis Clark to compose a piece to sound like a nightmare. Clark used techniques found in much contemporary classical music such as the composers Shoenberg, Webern, Berg and Stravinsky. Bet none of you knew that!!

Fantastic video Professor! Awesome info and a lot of background I wasn't aware of. ELO has always been one of my absolute favorite bands, with TIME being my favorite album I feel doesn't get talked about enough. Any chance of a video of that one? Particularly the incredible energy of "TWILIGHT" still amazes me to this day! So glad I got to see Jeff Lynne perform (ELO) just a few years ago in LA, he and the band all sounded absolutely top notch incredible!

Funny, the government accusing rock bands of evil psyops...

Sweet talking woman is such a great song, one of the first that properly got me into ELO. It’s got so many of the best parts of their other great songs all rolled into one.

I'm a 60 year old woman, and back when this album came out, I had a friend who had a nice reel to reel set up. So we recorded Fire On High, and played the beginning section backwards to hear what was being said. There was no internet back then to look it up, and we thought the phrase was both humorous and of course, true when we figured it out with what we did.

I didn’t have the appreciation for ELO back in the day but recently, after watching some of their concert videos, I’ve grown to enjoy them.

Everyone meets a Sweet Talkin’ Woman and red flags are mixed with caution lights, but it’s hard to turn away. Jeff nailed the lyrics. Fire seemed creepy and edgy, but rather than scare me, it reminded me of my faith. Thanks Adam, feel better quick!

The Satanic Panic was something to live through. My 5th grade Social Studies teacher nearly got fired for allowing kids to play D&D in her classroom during recess. It was a very weird big deal.

I remember falling asleep to the radio and waking up at 2-3 in the morning hearing Fire on high, it really creeped me out

Out of the Blue and A New World Record are my favorite ELO albums. It blows me away to think that the bulk of Out of the Blue, a double album, was written on a piano in a Swiss chalet. Pure genius!

Fire On High was a Jeff Lynne master stroke of genius. Still a favorite all these years later. Awesome, awesome track

I was a huge fan of the "Time" album so when _Stranger_ started to get radio airplay I bought "Secret Messages" from the Columbia House club. I love it and it is a masterpiece of music. I am so thankful that the US version includes _Time After Time_ at the end of side 1 to lead into _Four Little Diamonds_ on Side 2.

The postscript to "Nights in White Satin" used to creep me out as a child. As an adult I appreciated the message, but that "Moody" instrumental lead-in to the spoken conclusion of the song was frightening to a 9 or 10 year old me.

I heard Fire on High decades ago as a kid in the early 90s and loved it. I was a bit weird and loved older music even as a kid. Anyway, I recorded part of it on cassette tape, but I had no idea what it was called…until watching this video. Awesome video!

It's the Electric "Light Orchestra," not the "Electric Light" Orchestra. They were not a FULL orchestra, they were a LIGHT orchestra, with ELECTRIC instruments. If you didn't know before, now you do!

"Fire on High" contains my favorite single note in all music, around 4 minutes in when the guitar melody just barely goes into feedback before the choir comes back in.

"The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! "

Sweet Talkin' Woman was my favorite ELO song as a kid in the '70s, and Out of the Blue is definitely Lynne's masterpiece (although I think ANWR, FTM and Time are also really strong). With the exception of 'Jungle' every song is a melodic feast, and he could've released another ten songs on it that would've been hits. My favorites are Steppin Out, Wild West Hero, STW, It's Over and Standing in the Rain. I was lucky enough to see Lynne's ELO at the small Irving Plaza in NYC in 2015, and also at the Prudential Center in Newark in 2019. For the latter, they did Wild West Hero and Standing in the Rain, which were amazing. Hope they're not done with their touring days just yet! Thanks and feel better! - Dave

I always like ELO growing up. I think my favorite song was "Evil Woman" (Eeeeeevil Wooman). Jeff Lynne was such a great, yet underrated, lead singer. As for backmasking, I was part of a study as an undergrad regarding subliminal messages. I was, but some chance, part of two classes that were randomly selected from all the classes at the university. And, by chance, I was unknowingly part of the test group in one and the control group in the other. To make a long story short, while backmasking did exist (some artists put it in purposefully), it did not affect one because the brain could not decipher it. As an example, if someone plays a song backwards, you probably won't hear the backmasking if you are not told what to hear or the "message" is not printed as the song is playing if you are watching a video.

These people had nothing better to do than accuse rock artists of Satanic messages. 🤬

I worked for a 10W College Radio Station in 1975. We played alternate music & had the freedom to play non mainstream music. Loved Fire on High & the allure it created. I used the track as the opening for my daily show. Love your stories & content. Keep up the good work.

Fire On High is one of my favorite instrumentals ever!

"Where did you go?"... Love that opening line!

ELO is my absolute favorite band. I had friends who had tickets to see the tours of both Out of the Blue & the tour for New World Record. very close by.I was in high school & my mother wouldn't let me go. I get to college & friends are going to see ELO 60 miles away. My friend from high school told me the guy across the hall from him would give me details. He did & when I tried to make payment arrangements, he refused the $. I was upset - I didn't want to date that soon. My roommate talked me out if canceling. I did go to the concert. It was amazing. The guy turned out great. We have been married for 37 years & we took out kids to see Jeff Lynne tour a few years ago.

Im 66 ,lived thru all the great 70s music and concerts. I remember all the "paul is dead" stuff,but i never heard of all the other back tracking. I have all the ELO albums some on 8 track and saw them in concert a few times. I suppose with all that was going on, i missed this info. Now i have to dust off my album and start listening more closely. Love this site! Professor you wake me up to so many things that got passed me! Keep up the great work! PEACE!

I love listening to ELO with a good set of headphones. There is just so much there to enjoy - years later I actually realize just how great they were.

Actually Fire on High is one of my favorite ELO tracks, so eerie and trippy. I thought Jeff was just having some fun with the backward masking crowd for kicks. I always felt this track was like if Elton John collaborated with Pink Floyd but in an ELO style and intentionally meant to cause a stir. I never made the connection between Sweet talking women and Do You Believe in Love but definitely is true. Great episode professor, now im going to play this episode backwards and see what secret message you had, lol

When I was in high school late one night a friend from school was knocking on my bedroom window ( usually it's girls at my window ) He asked if he could spent the night at my place. He told me he was at home alone he had the radio on and they played ELO's " Fire on high " , he got scared so he came over to my place for the night. This kid was the school bully who beat up all the other kids

Loved this entire album. My Grandma was a Colombia House Record member and would bring these records to us grandkids because she didn't want them. She wanted the Nat King Cole and Perry Como stuff and when she'd get The Doors, The Who, and Led Zeplin albums she'd give them to us. As a result, eight and nine year old kids are walking around the house singing Whiskey Bar and Black Dog. Out of the Blue was one of them and I still have it.

I've always liked Electric Light Orchestra's music to one extent or another since I was about 4 years old and first recall hearing "Strange Magic" (not bad for a first ELO tune, considering today's topic). I'm totally there with regard to how Jeff's tongue went in his cheek over how unhinged the backlash against "secret messages" in music was. "Sweet Talkin' Woman" isn't a song I was familiar with growing up, but I came to dig it as an adult. I have occasionally wondered if he was trying to reflect both on the Beach Boys catalog and (their own) "Living Thing". I have commented before about the synonimity with "Do You Believe in Love". Kelly - that guy should've been better featured in ELO. He should've been as instantly recognizable in that context as Jeff.

What an audacious starter for an album! Really eerie. Listen with headphones. E.L.O. is one of my all time fav bands since I was 14 in 1982. I never tire of that sound.

I grew up through the satanic panic. I was not allowed to have any kind of rock music in the house. A guy came to the church and he did play that ELO backmasking track and it scared all of us.

"Fire on High " is a track with great acoustic guitars. The rhythmn is really fantastic. It brings me back when my brother and I would listen to ELO on my dad's turntable in the living room.

Finally a mention of one of my favorite Rock instrumentals. FIRE ON HIGH is awesome and AWESOMER very LOUD!! So how is SOOOOO many people don't get the message if they read it or even SCREAMED into their Face but a mumble garbled accidental audio can mess your life up and cause you to warship the Devil!!??? Humans!! Thanks to a couple smart ones we made it out of the CAVE!! Thanks Professor!! Peace 🕊️☮️♾️😎

The Fire On High song was also used on an indoor Scrambler ride at a small amusement park called Fun Town USA, in Saco, ME. My understanding is it was a special shortened version for the ride. I remember being just blown away by that song, and trying to find out the name and who did it. It was one of my earliest quests for a song title - long before Sound Hound and Shazam.

When my older brother first started driving, he would drive me to school each morning. He would often have ELO playing on his 8-track player (yes I'm OLD). In time ELO became one of my favorite groups. Jeff Lynne's musical genius is the stuff of legends. During the "Satanic Panic" I actually believed a lot of the tales I had heard, especially those pertaining to Stairway to Heaven. But even then I could never believe ELO could have done anything that subversive. They have always been all about the music.

Just love " Out of the Blue" as a 12 year old sneaking into my older brothers room when he wasn't around this was a regular. A number of years later having secured a copy myself i play it frequently on my turntable. As always thank you for the post Professor. I hope someday i pass the audition

Fire on High wasn't the theme song for ABC Wide World of Sports. It was the theme for CBS Sports Special (or Spectacular) from 1976-1978, which was CBS's version of Wide World of Sports in the 70s. It was replaced by a version of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" that was modelled after the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer version.

Are you kidding? - of course we want you to cover Secret Messages. In fact, don't be afraid to do a deep dive on that album, or indeed any of the upcoming ELO / Jeff Lynn albums. - I'm really looking forward to the Discovery video. Simply because that album was my first encounter with (or "discovery" 😉of) ELO in my early teens. I got absolutely drawn in and lost in the gorgeous album art. Both the insides and outsides. When the "Time" album came around, I was very into the Valerian comic books and that album was almost on constant repeat, when reading those comics. So, when ever I hear anything from "Time" my head instantly gets filled with all that strange and eerie Valerian comics space imagery. - Fun fact... Daft Punk "borrowed" a lot of samples from ELO's Discovery album, for their album of the same name (as a tribute to ELO). Which obviously was turned into a full length manga music video movie by Leiji Matsumoto, Kazuhisa Takenouchi, Hirotoshi Rissen, and Daisuke Nishio named "Interstella 5555". It is also a bit of a strange space oddity movie, much like those French Valerian comics, with genuinely the sweetest plot twist of all, at the very end. - Funny enough, Daft Punk's Discovery Album (and consequentially Interstella 5555) is pretty much the only thing by them, which is able to catch my attention and imagination.

You MUST cover the Secret Messages album. It is an absolute masterpiece of ELO's transition period.

I was very much into ELO as a 14 year old kid. As an adult pushing 60 years old....I still like them and I still have the Sweet Talkin' Woman 45 rpm single record (Clear Purple vinyl) with Fire On High as B-Side in the original mini-sleeve. This video put a smile on my face, Professor.

You should absolutely cover the Secret Messages album, very underrated (as was the case with most ELO material strangely, although it would seem people are finally catching on now), it has some classic tracks, Four Little Diamonds being my personal favourite, but Bluebird, Stranger, Danger Ahead, and of course the title track are classic tunes also, but there is not a bad song on the entire album, just out of this world tunes and excellent ones.

❤🎉 Yeah, the Satanic Panic. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 Always loved ELO. Great tunes for a 10 year period....... then Jeff Lynne became an extraordinary producer. Thanks Professor! Great start to the week.

Mr Blue Sky epitomises my childhood. I was 15 when that came out. I already loved ELO at the time. You put it beautifully how they grew and how Geoff Lynne was an absolute master craftsman. Really well done!!

Fire On High is the track that got me into ELO after hearing the single version on a classic rock station in the mid 80s. The self titled Idle Race album is the second album. The debut was called "The Birthday Party".

I always loved this band, their music was so unique. My favorite is "Can't Get It Out Of My Head". I am fortunate to have seen them once in concert.

For me as a kid Xanandu was the apex of ELO. Saw that movie with my Dad and never forgot. Wonderful memories with a wonderful band. I also remember he went to see ELO in concert and I was too young to go with him. I'm still mad about that. Lol

I love ELO. Theyre my top band. A friend turned me on to "Time" and i remember buying Secret Messages with my hard earned lawnmowing money. I love that album. I didnt think anyone else really liked it. Thanks for mentioning it and being so awesome Adam.

Fire on High has a special memory for me. When we were kids on K-94 (located in the middle of the great dismal swamp) played a mix of that song at midnight, "welcoming a brand new day". When hearing that, we needed to have out radar out to stay out of site from the cops or they would pick you up for curfew or try to.

Jeff Lynne is one of my all time favorites. Especially when he was with The Traveling Wilburys. I love ELO too! That's rich! 😂 Televangelist (95%) were the biggest crooks of all.

Oh man, I am going to enjoy this one!!! :)

Short, but deep track off of Van Halen's Fair Warning album entitled "Sunday Afternoon in the Park." I lived on a farm in those days. I came home for the weekend (College was 15 miles away). On the radio, I had heard that two prisoners had escaped from a nearby jail, had killed a guard and taken his gun and were on the loose. When got to the farm, nobody was home, which was surprising to me. But I had my new Fair Warning album by Van Halen and was eager to play it. So I went to the living room and started playing it. We had one phone number but several phones scattered around the farm Three in the house, one in the dairy barn which was like a quarter mile up the road, and one in the machine shop, near the house. We used to be able to call one another by picking up the phone dialing some combination of ones and nines (I want to say 1191, but I can't recall as this was more than 40 years ago) then hang up the phone. All of the phones on the farm would ring, but in a very specific anemic sounding sort of way......"ri-i-i-i-i-iii-ing" etc. So, I'm listening to the album and the song "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" comes on when the phone rings in that unique way. I'm figuring it's my mother or sister calling from the barn or something. I go to the kitchen and pick up the phone. A strange man's voice responds when I say "hello." He said, "Hello, is _____ (name of some person who didn't live in our house) there? Surprised that it was a strange man and that he was asking for a strange person I said, "I think you have the wrong number." He said, with exaggerated politeness, "I'm SO sorry" then hung up. Just then, the creepiest part of the Van Halen instrumental started. I had goosebumps all over my body. I was convinced it was one of the escaped convicts who was hiding on our farm. Of the three phones in the house, one was in the kitchen, which I answered, one was in my parents' bedroom, where my father kept a loaded .45 magnum pistol in the drawer in his side of the bedside table, and the third was in a remote small bedroom whose only use was to store my father's collection of firearms. I took one of our dogs who was a large German shepherd with me and started to go upstairs. First to my parents' bedroom. I looked in the drawer in the bedside table and the magnum pistol that was always there was not there! I went down the hall to my own bedroom where I had four rifles, one of which was a pump-action .22. Not exactly a cannon, but better than nothing (BTW, I am now a city dwelling peaceful person who does not own any guns, but remember this was a farm). I loaded the gun with some bullets, gave it a pump to set it, then proceeded to the remote bedroom. The dog with me was an excellent watchdog, so I knew if he whiffed a stranger anywhere nearby, he would start growling and barking. He wagged his tail nonchalantly as I took him around in the house. That bedroom was also empty. I took my rifle and the dog to the buildings with the remaining phones and neither found anyone nor did the dog raise a hair. Eventually, I relaxed, figuring that the wrong number was just that, and the fact that the phone rang in that weird way was just a weird coincidence. I don't know what happened to my father's gun. But for those who don't know Sunday Afternoon in the Park by Van Halen (it's a short, obscure instrumental), I encourage you to play it (it can be found on KZfaq) while sitting alone in the dark and see if it doesn't give you the heebie jeebies.

Saw ELO in 1979 which was the Out of the Blue Tour. They emerged from the album cover’s space ship on stage, which blew my 16-year old mind! Saw them again a few years ago, and Jeff and the band (with Richard Tandy - keyboardist, as the only other original member) were as fresh as ever!

Jeff Lynne is basically the fifth Beatle, all the Fab Four comeback songs were because of his masterful production.