“Telephone Line” by Electric Light Orchestra

"Telephone Line" is the lovelorn heart of Electric Light Orchestra's 1976 album A New World Record, sitting at track two, and it finally went out as a single on Jet and United Artists in May 1977. Jeff Lynne wrote, sang and produced it: a ballad about a man hanging on the line, listening to it ring, hoping she'll pick up and rehearsing what he'll say if she does.

With America falling hard for ELO, Lynne wanted a genuine American ring for the intro, so the band placed a call from England to a US number they knew nobody would answer and simply listened. Richard Tandy piles on piano, clavinet and Moog, Kelly Groucutt adds bass and backing vocals, Bev Bevan drums, and the cellos of Melvyn Gale and Hugh McDowell and Mik Kaminski's violin give it that lush, weeping ELO shimmer. It topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand, went top 10 in the US, UK and Australia, became their biggest American single and earned them their first gold single in Britain.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.