The ELO song Jeff Lynne almost got bored with before it became a favourite: “It’s just so primary and simple”

Posted On February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

The legendary rock musician and producer Jeff Lynne began his musical career in 1963 at age 16. His formative teenage bands idolised The Beatles and mimicked the efforts of eminent British Invasion acts. This was just the beginning of a remarkable career that would see Lynne befriend George Harrison and even produce posthumous Beatles releases, including parts of the Anthology series and the last ever single, ‘Now and Then’.

Between Lynne’s teenage dreams and his entry to Traveling Wilburys alongside Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison in the late 1980s, his rise to success relied on the success of his pop-rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).

Although ELO soared to unprecedented heights in 1977, following the release of their most famous album, Out of the Blue, home to ‘Turn to Stone’, ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ and ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’, the band first broke through to mainstream success in 1974, thanks to Eldorado and its charting lead single, ‘Can’t Get It Out of My Head’.

ELO’s early 1970s material danced the fine line between prog-rock’s contemporary complexities and glam-rock’s celestial sheen. However, the runaway success of later releases like Out of the Blue and Discovery could be attributed to a danceable, disco-inspired aesthetic fit to rival The Bee Gees.

In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Lynne discussed his love of disco music and picked out a personal favourite from this era for ELO. “‘Turn to Stone’ is one of my favourites I ever did,” he asserted. “It’s just so primary and simple, but yet very evocative. I love the shuffle beat.”

Continuing, Lynne remembered assembling the song with blissful abandon. “There’s a part in the middle where I talk super fast,” he said. “I just felt like it needed something simple in the middle of the song. I often used to put a funny little piece in a song just in case I get bored with it. I’d go, ‘Well, maybe this is going on too long. I’ll think of something daft to put in there.’”

“Disco was popular around this time, and I loved it,” Lynne added, discussing the late 1970s. “I loved the strictness of it. It really helped the group because I could really get a good punch going. There’s a lot of goodness in disco. I like some punk, too. Obviously, they were doing it from a place where they meant well, though maybe they didn’t quite know how to play properly yet. They were rough and ready like I was when I started.”

What makes ‘Turn to Stone’ such a telling choice is how it captures Lynne at his most instinctive. For all the orchestration and studio wizardry that would come to define ELO, the track thrives on economy and groove. The shuffle beat he praises gives the song its propulsion, proving that even a producer known for layering strings and harmonies understood the power of rhythmic discipline.

In many ways, Lynne’s affection for disco reveals the core of his creative identity. He has always been less concerned with genre boundaries than with momentum and feeling, borrowing from whatever movement offered the strongest pulse. From teenage Beatles devotee to chart-topping architect of pop spectacle, his career has been defined by that openness. ‘Turn to Stone’ stands as a reminder that simplicity, when handled with conviction, can be just as ambitious as the grandest production.

Listen to ‘Turn to Stone’ by Electric Light Orchestra below.