People longing to change their station in life can be fertile songwriting territory. There’s something noble in their ambitions to improve their status, and there’s something heartbreaking about the possibility they’ll never quite get there.
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Those ideas run rampant in the Electric Light Orchestra ballad “Can’t Get It Out of My Head.” The song tells the story of a poor sap whose inner life is filled with glory and grandeur that far outstrip anything he experiences in his reality.
“Head” Games
For every artist that hits the big time, there are countless others who dream of a level of success that will likely elude them. As a result, it’s not too surprising songwriters find common ground with characters like the one at the heart of “Can’t Get It Out of My Head.”
In the case of ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne, his was no easy ascent to the heights of fame and fortune. He had enjoyed success in the ’60s in his native Great Britain as a member of The Move, who managed several hit singles. But those songs were mostly written and sung by Roy Wood.
Wood and Lynne created the Electric Light Orchestra as a side project that would focus on melding rock rhythms with classical music instrumentation and motifs. Wood soon left ELO, and it became Lynne’s main area of focus. A few more hit British singles came from the band’s first three albums.
But Lynne still faced his share of doubters, including one in his own family. His father continuously denigrated his son’s work as being unworthy. That lit a fire under Lynne as he set about writing the ELO album Eldorado, released in 1974.
The album comes from the perspective of a nondescript fellow who works in a bank. This character constantly gets lost in a dream world to escape the drudgery of his reality. “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” thoroughly articulates the concept, and it gave ELO their breakthrough single in the U.S.
Exploring the Lyrics of “Can’t Get It Out of My Head”
“Can’t Get It Out of My Head” immediately throws us into the protagonist’s dream world: Last night on the water / I saw the ocean’s daughter. This apparition calls out to him, and the chorus kicking into gear illustrates how this vision has taken over his life: No, I can’t get it out of my head / Now my old world is gone for dead.
In the second verse, he pursues this elusive creature, even as the conditions work against him: Breakdown on the shoreline / Can’t move, it’s an ebb tide. But he keeps after it, knowing there’s no turning back: Searching for her silver light.
In the final verse, his reverie breaks for a moment, revealing his true existence and how it fails to measure up to his heroes: Bank job in the city / Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don’t envy me. In dreams, the world keeps going ’round and ’round, he admits, referencing how he’s trapped between two worlds.
One wonders just how Jeff Lynne’s father felt when he heard “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” for the first time. Without his criticism, his son might never have created this classic track, or known the insecurity necessary to get inside the head of the main character.
Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
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