Greetings, Dialophiles! Tonight, the Dial zeros
in on a 1979 smash that has rarely enjoyed airplay since its original release,
despite being recorded by an iconic group that enjoyed tremendous success in
the 70s and early 80s! Lace up your skates and get ready for Electric Light
Orchestra’s “Shine A Little Love”!
A smash hit peaking at US #8 and UK #6 in the
summer of '79, “Shine…” served as the lead single from the LP Discovery , which was amusingly referred
to as "Disco? Very!" by ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy in reference to
the album’s dance friendly vibes.
Although
the things you've done, I wouldn't criticize.
I guess you had your way…
Featuring ELO founder Jeff Lynne on lead vocals,
Bev Bevans on drums, bass guitarist Kelly Groucutt, and Tandy on synthesizer,
“Shine…” literally swirls around the listener in a jubilant spacey-disco-pop
jam, perfectly capturing the upbeat feel and youthful vibe we often associate
with the 70s.
I have a very vivid memory regarding this song
which transports me back to the Livingston Square shopping center in Fort
Washington, Maryland, circa ‘79. It was a simple mall, one corridor containing
about 25 shops, bookended by two atypical anchors... a Giant Food grocery
store, and a large craft and art supply store.
They also featured a Baskin Robbins, a book
store, a kids clothing store, a Shakey's Pizza, and a very cool record store. I
don’t quite recall the name, but I believe it was something simple like
"Record Land". Nevertheless, this exact store introduced me to the
Billboard top 40 charts, a topic that still fascinates me to this day.
A grid of white square boxes was offered along
one of the store’s walls, and each box contained multiple copies of a certain
45 RPM record, complete in crisp new paper sleeves. The upper left box
contained that week's Billboard #1 hit, the box to its right held #2, to the
right of that was #3 and so on. I believe the grid was five columns by eight
rows, or at least that seems to have been the most likely configuration. A copy
of that week's Top 40 chart, was mounted on the wall to the side of
the grid, serving as a sort of a "map" to find your song. I
distinctly recall visiting this store, checking the chart for "Shine A
Little Love", (it was at its peak position), then retrieving the 45 of
ELO's hit from the box marked as #8.
To this day, I am still fascinated with
researching the peak positions of hit (and not so hit) songs, due largely in
part to the early influence from this record store with the long forgotten
name.
Can
you understand (yes, I understand)… Can you feel it’s right (I know it is)…
Will you be the same? (I'll do it all again)
Additionally, when this song was a hot hit, I was
a lad of five years old, and a huge fan of video games (as I remain to this
day). When the “oompa-oompa oompa-oompa” refrain began in the middle of the
song, I immediately interpreted it as a vocal mimic of the “heartbeat” sound
effect from the Space Invaders arcade game, which was enjoying the peak of its
popularity at the same time ELO’s track was a hit. By extension, I also heard
the “ooowa ooowa ooowa ooowa” portion heard later in the song as the “mystery
ship” sound from that same classic arcade game.
In recent years, it seems that "Don't
Bring Me Down" enjoys the overwhelming majority of ELO’s terrestrial
radio airplay, though from time to time, I’ll luck across a station playing
"Evil Woman" or "Turn to Stone". However, the
rest of Jeff Lynne and company’s hits, including "Shine", appears to
have been unfairly neglected by radio since then.
So give ELO’s classic a spinny-spin, and just see
if its bouncy and euphoric vibe doesn’t whisk you away to a high school dance,
maybe a roller rink, or perhaps a cool little record store in a small mall
somewhere. Oh… and… you’re welcome!
You
shine a little love on my life… You shine a little love on my life… You shine a
little love on my life… And let me see !
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