Entry 11- TIME ALBUM

Language 4. Entry Nª-11

“TIME” , ALBUM BY ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA.



Thanks to technology and the invention of MP3 and the compilation of old songs I could get the album “Time” by Electric Light Orchestra. Once I had listened the song “21st century man” while I was reading The time machine, and I fell in love with this song. For many years I tried to find it but I couldn`t until the invention of MP3.
I remember Electric Light Orchestra when they produced the successful song “Last train to London”. It is still a beautiful song and I used to sing it along. In 1984, they changed the style and produced the album “Time”, containing beautiful electronic music mixed with space and metallic sounds. The sounds of synthesizers and the metallic voice of a robot are fantastic. The album consists of 13 songs included a prologue and an epilogue. Most of the songs have futurist lyrics, such as the Prologue which begins with the sound of a spaceship as if it were coming out of Earth or out of the ocean. Afterwards the sad and patient metallic voice of a robot speaks. He asks people to wait for the ship at the border side. At this point I imagine people in the future will be able to buy a ticket to a planet and take a space ship to go to the Moon or to Mars on tourism.
“Twilight” follows the brief prologue with an abrupt beginning, and the sounds of electric guitars, battery, drums, synthesizers and piano. Then comes “Yours truly 2095” is like the ending of a later from another time. But you realize that it is a repeated and mechanical answer of a female robot lover. It is faster, the voice of the singer is modified. He is in love with a robot, but she is an IBM, programmed to be nice, but she is cold. She is not a real woman. This song has a kind of message, a futuristic view that by 2095, people will be able to buy robot lovers, as company. They will feel so lonely that they will need a pleasing robot, but robots are cold as ice, as the singer says. So why is it that relationships between human beings are so difficult? May be because we are so complex and have feeling whereas a robot does not have, so she can bare anything.
The fourth song “Ticket to the moon”, is like a ballad with special sounds. It is very romantic. He has a ticket to travel to the moon, but he is not happy because his beloved is in Earth. The next song “Way life’s meant to be”, he wishes to be back in 1984 because he is not happy in the future. He wishes to be back in 1984 the best time of all when the album was produced. Present time is better than the past and the future.
Song number six is very particular and very original and strange. It is “Another heart breaks”. I have never listened to something like that before. It is an amazing piece of composition, with electronic sounds and space effects as a background imitating the beats of your heart. It is really touching because the beats of the song go along with the bits of your heart. You can taste it by listening to the song and touching your chest. The beats of your heart seem to be part of the song. This composition is mostly instrumental. A moment comes when it seems that the heart breaks, or has a heart attack and it is dying, someone tries to revive it, counting from 1 to 8, to give it an electric shock.
Song number seven is also beautiful and very realistic because ELO has incorporated real sounds of a storm. You can hear the sound of wind blowing, then a thunder sounds very near and you imagine the lightning breaking the sky, then the sound of rain falling, the song is called “Rain is falling”. A man is inside his home looking through the window how the rain falls. He needs someone at that time, he feels alone. He is transported with his mind somewhere, looking for somebody else.
It seems that loneliness , insecurity and the lack of communication is a recurrent theme in ELO’s songs.
An abrupt change comes with “From the end of the world”, the title is very suggestive, the rhythm is very fast. It’s very hard to understand the lyrics because the voice has special effects. In “Light goes down” the tone changes, the rhythm is slow. A man needs someone close to him at this special moment when the lights go down, but there is no one around. And again, loneliness is expressed.
“Here is the news”, is the tenth song. You can listen to a radio telling the news. It is 1984, a difficult time. The news show all the worst of the world’s convention. Someone is afraid, within a violent society full of news about murder, he does not want to end in a plastic bag. Here we have another theme: death, insecurity, violence. A verse “somebody’s broken at 792, look very carefully,/ it may be you,you,you”, sounds as an advise you may feel scared because violence is part of our society.
My favourite song is number 11 “ 21st century man” it is the most beautiful and significant of them all. It is a sad ballad which talks about man living in the 21st century. Man at this century is described as being always busy, caring about money all the time. And lives in a hurry in order to get it. “ a penny in your pocket,/ suitcase in your hand, /they want get you very far,/ now you are a 21st century man”
“fly across the city,/ rise upon the land,/ you can do most anything,/ now you are a 21st century man” as if man is different in this century, he is always travelling, he kinds of multitask, he can do most everything.
“one day you are a hero/ next time you are a clown” showing the ups and downs of the man , sometimes happy, we are like heroes, doing great things, but sometimes we may feel ridiculous, like clowns when others laugh at us. An interesting question comes when “you should be so happy, / you should be so glad, / so why are you so lonely / you 21st man”. Having technology at hand, work, money, prestige, family, we are so lonely. May be we do not have time for others nor for ourselves. Again lack of communication is present. It seems that having all material things is useless if we cannot find ourselves and communicate or share with others.
Song number 12 seems not to belong to the same sequence as the previous ones. The rhythm changes, It is a rock’n roll with traditional instruments, very fast, nevertheless the lyrics give you comfort and hope . it is called “Hold on tight to your dreams”, brings a beautiful message to all people who have a dream and cannot make it true, so the better way to achieve it is holding tight to your dreams. One stanza is in English and another is in French.
The last is “Epilogue” is very brief and with a summary of the lyrics of the song “21st century man” , it is very short and in the end you can hear the sound of the same space ship of the beginning launching into space. When you join the epilogue and the prologue together, they sound as one composition split by the other songs, so there is a kind of continuity.
“Time” is not only a well done, beautiful album, but with some messages to the mankind living in the 21st century. If you listen to the lyrics you can find the message.