Strange Magic Electric Light Orchestra

Strange Magic Album: Face the Music (1975)
by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)

The Electric Light Orchestra was formed by members of an English group called The Move. They wanted to create a new band with a string section along with traditional instruments.

On their 1978 tour, they opened their shows by emerging from a giant spaceship. A lot of people thought it looked like a hamburger.

Their first manager was Don Arden. When he lost interest in the group, he gave them to his daughter Sharon who ran Jet Records. Sharon nee Arden married Ozzy Osbourne a few years later.

"Strange Magic" is a song written Jeff Lynne and performed by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). "Strange Magic" is the sixth track on the fifth studio album Face the Music.

The 'weeping' guitar lick was provided by keyboardist Richard Tandy while Jeff Lynne played a 12-string acoustic guitar fed through a phase shifter.

The song has a complicated history with a number of different versions — most by ELO and one by Jeff Lynne alone — released both as a single and as a track on a number of different albums.

After its initial appearance on Face the Music, it was released as a single in 1976 in two versions, one for the US and one for the UK, both different from the original. The US single was more edited than the UK single which appeared as it was originally in Face the Music, but without the orchestral intro.

Also in 1976, "Strange Magic" was included as the final track in the United Artists Records promotional ELO album, Olé ELO.

In 1978, the song was included on the band's The ELO EP.

A remastered version was included on the box set Flashback in 2000.

In September 2006, a remastered Face the Music album was released; it contained the US edit version from the 1976 single releases.

Finally, Jeff Lynne re-recorded the song in his own home studio in 2012. It was released in a compilation album with other re-recorded ELO songs, under the ELO name.

"Strange Magic" is also a good description for this song's sonics. Compressed to a tight 3:27 for the single release (it runs 4:29 on the album), the song packs in an intriguing array of harmonies and hooks while integrating the famous ELO string section. The lyric is suitably trippy, and very repetitious, with the title appearing five times per chorus.

Writer: JEFF LYNNE

You're sailing softly through the sun
In a broken stone age dawn
You fly so high

I get a strange magic
Oh, what a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic
Got a strange magic
Got a strange magic

You're walking meadows in my mind
Making waves across my time
Oh no, oh no

I get a strange magic
Oh, what a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic
Got a strange magic
Got a strange magic

Oh, I'm never gonna be the same again
Now I've seen the way it's got to end
Sweet dream, sweet dream

Strange magic
Oh, what a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic
Got a strange magic
Got a strange magic

It's magic, it's magic, it's magic
Strange magic
Oh, what a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic
Got a strange magic
Strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic

Got a strange magic
Strange magic
Oh, what a strange magic
Oh, it's a strange magic

Got a strange magic
Strange magic
You know I got a strange magic
Yeah I got a strange magic
Strange magic