Evil Woman Don't Bring Me Down Elo

Evil Woman Album: Face the Music (1975)
Don't Bring Me Down Album: Discovery (1979)
by Electric Light Orchestra

Evil Woman was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany some time in early to mid 1975. Jeff Lynne wrote the song on a piano in the studio on the last days of recording, writing it very quickly. The band's recording for all of the other songs for the Face The Music album had been completed when Jeff needed another song. One morning, while the rest of the band was out, he sat at the piano and played the opening piano riff, which became the basis of the song. Later that same day, the rest of the band came in and recorded the backing track. The lyrics were written and recorded the next day at Musicland. The string and female choir parts were recorded (and possibly written) later at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley, U.K.

During the instrumental break in the song, when the synthesizer plays, right before the chorus starts up the second time, if you play it backwards, you can actually hear the synthesizer sound that plays in another song by the Electric Light Orchestra: "Nightrider."

The line "There's a hole in my head where the rain comes in," was inspired by the Beatles song, "Fixing a Hole."

"Don't Bring Me Down" is the highest charting ELO hit in both the UK and US, although ELO's "Xanadu" collaboration with Olivia Newton-John did hit #1 UK.

This was the first ELO song that did not use strings. After recording it, they fired their string section, leaving four members in the band.

ELO leader Jeff Lynne wrote this song late in the sessions for the Discovery album. He came up with the track by looping the drums from a song he recorded earlier in the session, then coming up with more music on the piano. The words came last, as Lynne put together some lyrics about a girl who thinks she's too good for the guy she's with.

As a little joke, Lynne put a count-in at the beginning of the song, even though there was nobody he was counting in.

This turned out to be a good theme song for astronauts enjoying their time in space. The song was played to astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia as their wake up call on July 6, 1996 - they were in flight longer than expected because of bad weather on the ground. ELO's record company also tried to tie in the song with the Skylab space station, which crashed to Earth on July 11, 1979 after six years in space. They placed ads in trade magazines promoting the new single "Don't Bring Me Down" by dedicating it to Skylab.

Wondering why Jeff Lynne repeatedly sings the word "groose" after the song's title line? Apparently it was a made-up place-keeper word to fill a gap in the vocals when he was improvising the lyrics.

When the German engineer Reinhold Mack heard the ELO frontman's demo, he asked Lynne how he knew "gruss" means "greetings" in his country's language. Upon learning the German meaning, Lynne decided to leave it in.

Many fans misinterpreted "groose" as "Bruce." In fact, so many people misheard the lyric that Lynne actually began to sing the word as "Bruce" for fun at live shows.

This appears in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "Love & Monsters," and in the 2012 Family Guy episode "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" It has also been used in these films:

I Can Only Imagine (2018)
Super 8 (2011)
College Road Trip (2008)
The In-Laws (2003)
Donnie Brasco (1997)

In 2020, this was used in a Peloton commercial where a dad tries to stay motivated using the fitness bike. It was also used in the trailer for the 2017 film The Emoji Movie.

In one of his earliest gigs, Brad Garrett, star of long-running TV comedy Everybody Loves Raymond, can be seen in Arabian garb on the inner sleeve of the Discovery album.