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Electric Light Orchestra and Jeff Lynne -- Don't Bring Me Down An in-depth song analysis

Electric Light Orchestra (Original Version) Electric Light Orchestra (Solo Version) Record Date: March/April 1979 Record Location: Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany Written By: Jeff Lynne Produced By: Jeff Lynne Engineered By: Mack Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer), Bev Bevan (drums, percussion), Richard Tandy (grand piano, synthesizer, electric piano, clavinet), Kelly Groucutt (bass, vocals) Initially Released On: Discovery LP album (1979 May  UK  Jet JET LX 500) Record Date: Some time between 2001 and 2008 Record Location: Bungalow Palace Studio, California USA (Jeff Lynne's home studio) Written By: Jeff Lynne Produced By: Jeff Lynne Engineered By: Steve Jay, Ryan Ulyate & Marc Mann Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, bass, drums, keyboards), Marc Mann (strings), Steve Jay (shakers, tambourine) Initially Released On: NHL 12 Xbox 360 and Playstation videogames (2011 September 13  USA  EA Sports ?)

Comments and Observations

Don't Bring Me Down was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany some time early in 1979. Its recording is significant to the band's history because it was not written or recorded in the typical manner. Jeff Lynne wrote the song while in the studio late in the Discovery sessions. He selected a drum track from a song recorded earlier in the session, slowed it down, and looped it continuously to create a new song. This was an early, primitive form of sampling before electronic samplers were available. Using this looped beat, Jeff wrote the song on piano in the studio and immediately following created the basic backing track all by himself. Later, Jeff wrote the words and they were added to the song along with the final touches. It is unclear if other band members, if any, were directly involved in the song, although it is likely that Richard Tandy added the keyboard flourishes throughout. Musicland Studios engineer [Reinhold] Mack today declares that he inspired the song by one day telling Jeff to ditch the strings and just have a jam session; the truth of this remains uncorroborated as Jeff, Bev and Richard have never mentioned Mack's involvement at all and have only ever credited Jeff. The song features no strings and is the first ELO song released to not have them included.

The song was released as a single in England on Jet records on August 24, 1979 with stock number "JET 153" with an unedited but reverse stereo version of Dreaming Of 4000 from the On The Third Day album on the B-side. It was a rush release for the UK because, unlike North America and continental European countries which released Don't Bring Me Down as the second single off the Discovery album, the UK chose to release The Diary Of Horace Wimp instead. While The Diary Of Horace Wimp was turning out to be a moderate success in the UK, Don't Bring Me Down was a smash hit elsewhere. Thus the single was rush released in the UK as The Diary Of Horace Wimp was falling in the charts. In the USA, it's the eighteenth single release and was released in July 1979, on Jet Records (distributed by CBS) with stock number "ZS9 5060" with the same version of Dreaming Of 4000 on the B-side. It was also released as the final track of side 2 on the Discovery album on May 1979 in the USA and June 1979 in England.

Don't Bring Me Down is also significant as it is ELO's highest Billboard charting single ever in the USA and is the biggest hit in many other countries as well. In the UK, it is the second highest charting single (with Xanadu as the top single in 1980). It entered the UK chart on September 1, 1979, peaked at #3 on September 22, and spent 8 weeks in the chart. In the USA, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on August 4, 1979, reached #4 for two consecutive weeks on September 8 & 15, 1979, spending 15 weeks in the chart and entered the Cash Box chart on July 28, 1979, reached #4 for two consecutive weeks on September 22 & 29, 1979, spending 17 weeks in the chart. It is ELO's sixteenth Billboard chart single.

Also of interest, this song features no strings and is the first ELO song ever to not use an orchestra at all. It is unclear why no strings were used. It is well documented that Jeff was getting tired of the requirement for having to use an orchestra on all his songs and the Discovery sessions were the first ELO sessions in which the band's string players were not used in the studio (and they were dismissed from the band shortly after the album's release). It is likely that Jeff completed the backing track and concluded that the song simply didn't need strings, so he never added them to the song. Indeed, Don't Bring Me Down was such a big success for the band that Jeff likely decided at that time that the use of strings would be reduced on all future recordings. And it was.

Jeff has remained coy about from which song he selected the drum beat and it might be the case that he doesn't recall himself where it is from. Audio evidence shows and engineer Mack confirm that it was taken from On The Run, recorded earlier for the Discovery album. A sample can be heard HERE that includes a sample Don't Bring Me Down, then a sample from the original On The Run (which is slowed down to match the beat), and finally a blend of the two.

At the beginning of the song, Jeff can be heard counting in the song (one, two-- one, two, three, four). This appears to be Jeff having a bit of a joke, because a count-in was not actually needed for the song. The song is not actually a live in studio performance by the full band, but rather a song that is fabricated from the looped drum beat and Jeff himself playing various instruments to make the backing track. The count-in was probably added after the backing track was recorded.

The chorus uses the nonsense word "grroosss" (as it is written in the liner notes) which has caused much confusion and amusement over the years. This word has no meaning and was simply a word that Jeff had made up on the spot as he was recording the vocals. While recording at Musicland Studios in Germany, Mack (according to Jeff) expressed his surprise at Jeff's use of a German word in his lyrics. The German word "Grüß" (written as "grooss" in the standard Latin alphabet) means "greeting" in German. It was totally by accident that Jeff's made up word "grroosss" sounded like the German word, but the decision was made to leave it in the song. Later, upon the song's release, many people misinterpreted this word as "Bruce" as if Jeff were singing the song to an imaginary person named Bruce (which would be odd considering that in the song, he is singing to a female). Somehow the rumor even started that this was a veiled reference in a lawyer for the band named Bruce, which is totally false. In any case, Jeff noted that during live shows, many fans sang the lyric as "Bruce" rather than "grroosss". Shortly afterwards, he began singing it as "Bruce" as well. This new lyric is quite noticeable on the Zoom Tour Live DVD concert. And Jeff sang the lyric as "Bruce" on the new solo version that he recorded in the 2000s, showing that he considers "Bruce" the more correct lyric now. Also of note, in an interview, Mack declared that the original lyric actually was "Bruce" in reference to an upcoming Australian tour, but the decision was made to change it to "grroosss" instead for the record. Mack is probably misremembering a few things here as there was no upcoming Australian tour and no other mention of it ever being "Bruce" originally has ever otherwise been made.

At the song's end is a sound that many fans have had difficulty identifying over the years. It is confirmed to be a fire door that is slammed at Musicland studios in Germany. It can be heard HERE (with enhancement on the door slam so it can be heard clearly). It is uncertain why the slamming door part was included, but it likely was intended just as an amusing ending to the song and/or the Discovery album, as if the band were finished playing and were immediately leaving the building.

In the UK, there was a curious 7" single released that was actually pressed in France. It states "Made In France" on the label and the label is quite different from the standard UK yellow Jet paper label, being a yellowish green silk screen label instead. Because of this, it is often misidentified as a French single. It was pressed in France, but it was made for export to the UK market. Clues to this include the UK stock number of JET 153 (rather than the French JET 503), the UK copyright on the label, the UK picture sleeve, and probably most telling, "U.K." etched into the runout groove of both sides of the single. The versions of the songs on the A and B sides are the same as the LP versions they are taken from (as are all singles for Don't Bring Me Down). This single was made in France for import to the UK because the song was rush released in the UK and UK pressing plants did not have the capacity to print all singles needed. Thus the job was exported to a French pressing plant for some singles.

Some time in the late 2000s, Jeff Lynne re-recorded Don't Bring Me Down. It was first heard in part on the 2008 film, College Road Trip (during the skydiving scene) as a slight edit where it is credited in the film to the Electric Light Orchestra. Clearly it is not the original recording but a whole new recording. A very brief segment of this version was also used in the Reading Is A Fundamental Case episode of the My Name Is Earl TV program at the end of 2008, then again in the 2010 film Furry Vengeance and the 2011 film, Paul . The full version of the song was eventually released on the NHL 12 videogame soundtrack later in 2011. However, as the song is embedded in the game, it can only be heard while playing the game (although special software can be applied to extract the song and it quickly found its way to bootleg). It's a fairly faithful recreation of the song, although it misses the door slam at the end of the song. Finally, the full song was released and easily purchased on the 2012 re-record album, Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra .

Ostensibly this rerecording was done because Jeff felt that he could improve the the song (and other ELO hits that appear on the Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra ) using modern recording techniques, stating that when he hears the original recordings, he's not entirely happy with them. Some have suggested that Jeff may have rerecorded it because he does not own the full rights to the original songs. Instead the rights are owned by Sony and when the songs are used in films, ads and other money making ventures, Sony gets most (if not all) of the money. By being able to market his own self-recorded versions, Jeff gets all the money instead. Jeff, however, denies this is the reason for the rerecordings.

It's not entirely clear if the newer solo version should be credited to Jeff Lynne alone or Electric Light Orchestra. All sources and interviews are very clear that these are Jeff Lynne solo recordings, yet there has been no definitive statement about exactly how the artist for the recordings should be credited. The College Road Trip film credits it to Electric Light Orchestra and the NHL 12 has no known credit. The Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra collection gives only the album's title and does not state the artist anywhere. Other sources such as iTunes credit the artist as Electric Light Orchestra. And Frontiers Records shop originally did not give an artist credit, but revised the artist to Electric Light Orchestra shortly after release. Yet clearly these are solo recordings. Jeff, in interviews, implies that this is to be an Electric Light Orchestra recording as the "group" is now a one-man band and he is the band.

When the NASA Skylab space station was about to reenter the Earth's atmosphere on July 11, 1979, Don't Bring Me Down was dedicated to it (probably as a publicity stunt by Jet Records). NASA and the song intersected again on July 6, 1996, when the shuttle Columbia mission STS-78 was experiencing an extended stay in space due to bad weather at the landing site. ELO's Don't Bring Me Down was used as the astronaut wake-up call that morning, being an inside joke about their extended flight. The actual wake-up call recording can be heard HERE. Note that the poor sound quality of the clip was common for spaceflight orbit to ground recordings. Curiously, the Jeff Lynne co-written song Free Fallin' was played on the same mission on June 21.

There is a really nice article at Crawdaddy! , the online music review magazine, that declares ELO's Don't Bring Me Down as the top Don't Bring Me Down song. (There have been several with that title over the years.) It can be viewed HERE.

Structure and Lyrics

Below is the structure of the fullest, most complete version of the originally released song as available on the standard issues of the Discovery album. The Jeff Lynne solo version is the exact same arrangement except that it cuts the door slam at the song's end and the "grroosss" lyric is changed to "Bruce".

Electric Light Orchestra (Original Version) Lyric sheet from USA Discovery album -Drum Intro with Count-In

-Guitar and Piano Intro

-Verse 1

You got me runnin', goin' out of my mind

You got me thinkin' that I'm wastin' my time

Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Verse 2

You wanna stay out with your fancy friends

I'm tellin' you it's got to be the end

Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Chorus 1

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down

-Verse 3

What happened to the girl I used to know?

You let your mind out somewhere down the road

Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Verse 4

You're always talkin' 'bout your crazy nights

One of these days you're gonna get it right

Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Chorus 2

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down, grroosss

Don't bring me down

-Verse 5

You're lookin' good just like a snake in the grass with no guitar backing

One of these days you're gonna break your glass with no guitar backing

Don't bring me down, no no no no no no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Short guitar and piano bridge #1

-Verse 6

You got me shakin', got me runnin' away

You get me crawlin' up to you everyday

Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down, down, down, down, down, down

-Short guitar and piano bridge #2

-Verse 7

I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

Don't bring me down

-Door slam



Variations

There are only two known non-live variations of the original Don't Bring Me Down They are:

-Don't Bring Me Down (Standard Release)

-Don't Bring Me Down (Edited 18 Greatest Hits LP Version)



It is somewhat surprising that Don't Bring Me Down was never edited for single release as typically radio stations want shorter songs and at four minutes plus, this song pushes the limits. Perhaps by the late 1970s, the desire for shorter songs had decreased and an edit was no longer necessary. All releases even include the door slam sound at the end, which was unlikely to be heard on radio. The only known variation is an edit, from the 1984 Australian 18 Greatest Hits LP which replaces the last "I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor, Don't bring me down" line of the sixth verse with the same lines of the final verse, cutting everything in-between.

In addition, there are two versions of the newer Jeff Lynne solo version as first heard in the College Road Trip film and eventually released on the NHL 12 videogame and Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra album. They are:

-Don't Bring Me Down (Solo Version)

-Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix Solo Version)



The performance used in the videogame is complete, however the segment used in the film, has both stereo and 5.1 mixes depending on which audio track and audio equipment is used. The version heard in the film is incomplete and edited for use in the film. What is heard is in the included in the chart below with special notation.

Song Section Lyric/Part Don't Bring Me Down (Standard Release) Don't Bring Me Down (Edited 18 Greatest Hits LP Version) * Don't Bring Me Down (Solo Version)

Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix Solo Version)

Intro Drum Intro with Count-In YES YES * YES Guitar and Piano Intro YES YES * YES Verse 1 You got me runnin', goin' out of my mind YES YES * YES You got me thinkin' that I'm wastin' my time YES YES * YES Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES Don't bring me down YES YES * YES Verse 2 You wanna stay out with your fancy friends YES YES * YES * I'm tellin' you it's got to be the end YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES * I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down YES YES * YES * Chorus 1 Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce . As heard in College Road Trip , this it is preceeded by a repeat of the complete intro. Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce Don't bring me down YES YES * YES Verse 3 What happened to the girl I used to know? YES YES * YES You let your mind out somewhere down the road YES YES * YES Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES Don't bring me down YES YES * YES * Verse 4 You're always talkin' 'bout your crazy nights YES YES * YES * One of these days you're gonna get it right YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES * I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down YES YES * YES * Chorus 2 Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce * Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce * Don't bring me down, grroosss YES YES * YES, but grroosss lyric changed to Bruce * Don't bring me down YES YES * YES * Verse 5 You're lookin' good just like a snake in the grass with no guitar backing YES YES * YES * One of these days you're gonna break your glass with no guitar backing

YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down, no no no no no no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES * I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down YES YES * YES * Short guitar and piano bridge #1 Short guitar and piano bridge #1 YES YES * YES Verse 6 You got me shakin', got me runnin' away YES YES * YES You get me crawlin' up to you everyday YES YES * YES Don't bring me down, no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo YES YES * YES I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES - * YES Don't bring me down, down, down, down, down, down YES - * YES * Short guitar and piano bridge #2 Short guitar and piano bridge #2 YES - * YES * Verse 7 I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor YES YES * YES * Don't bring me down YES YES * YES Door slam Door slam YES YES * -

* missing from the stereo and 5.1 mix heard on College Road Trip .

Music Charts

These are the known statistics for the various countries' music charts. If you can fill in the missing information or know of charting information in other countries, please let me know at the email address listed at the bottom of this page.

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 15 Week 16 Week 17 Week 18 Week 19 Week 20 Week 21 Week 22 Week 23 Week 24 Week 25 Week 26 Week 27 UK Official Top 75 Chart Entry Date: September 1, 1979 38 11 4 3

(September 22, 1979) 5 10 20 36 USA Billboard Hot 100 Chart Entry Date: August 4, 1979 41 18 14 6 5 4

(September 8, 1979) 4

(September 15, 1979) 10 10 11 13 39 41 73 97 USA Cash Box Top 100 Chart Entry Date: July 28, 1979 48 36 28 15 12 10 8 6 4

(September 22, 1979) 4

(September 29, 1979) 9 11 21 27 42 61 96 Australia Kent Music Report Top 20 Chart Entry Date: September 15, 1979 18 13 10 6

(October 6, 1979) 9 8 7 8 8 10 13 18 Austria Ö3 Austria Top 40 Top 40 Chart Entry Date: October, 1979 Note, these charts were on monthly cycle in 1979, then changed to a twice monthly cycle in 1980 20 2

(November, 1979) 2

(December, 1979) 4 7 7 Canada CHUM Chart Entry Date: August 4, 1979 26 20 11 5 2

(September 1, 1979) 2

(September 8, 1979) 3 3 6 11 17 25 Canada RPM Top 100 Chart Entry Date: August 11, 1979 90 88 74 28 13 8 4 3 1

(October 6, 1979) 2 6 6 10 18 22 29 32 39 43 51 59 60 87 Germany Top 70 Chart Entry Date: September 24, 1979 26 20 8 8 5

(October 22, 1979) 5

(October 29, 1979) 5

(November 5, 1979) 5

(November 12, 1979) 7 9 10 13 13 17 21 25 28 34 35 44 49 39 50 64 70 67 70 Holland Top 40 (De Nederlandse Top 40) Chart Entry Date: August 11, 1979 26 14 8 5

(September 1, 1979) 5

(September 8, 1979) 5

(September 15, 1979) 7 13 21 31 38 Holland Top 50 (Origin unknown) Chart Entry Date: August 11, 1979 47 14 7 7 5

(September 8, 1979) 5

(September 15, 1979) 9 9 14 18 32 43 Ireland Top 30 Chart Entry Date: September 22, 1979 24 10 7 8 6

(October 20, 1979) 20 New Zealand Top 50 Chart Entry Date: August 19, 1979 34 24 21 18 8 6

(September 23, 1979) 7 6

(October 7, 1979) 6

(October 14, 1979) 9 13 17 28 48 48 Switzerland Top 15 Chart Entry Date: October 28, 1979 14 9 6 2

(November 18, 1979) 3 4 5 9 9 no

chart

published 11 13

Releases

Here are all the known USA and UK releases of the song:

Don't Bring Me Down (Standard Release)

Running Time: 4:06

Released On:

Discovery LP album (1979 May 31  UK  Jet JET LX 500) Discovery LP album (1979 June  USA  Jet FZ 35769) Don't Bring Me Down 7" single (1979 July  USA  Jet/CBS ZS9 5060) Don't Bring Me Down 7" promo single (1979 July  USA  Jet/CBS ZS9 5060) Don't Bring Me Down 7" single (1979 September 1  UK  Jet JET 153) Don't Bring Me Down 12" single (1979 September 1  UK  Jet JET 12-153) Four Light Years LP album (1981 April  UK  Jet JET BX2) A Box Of Their Best LP album (1980  USA  Jet Z4X 36966) Discovery Half Speed Mastered LP album (1980  USA  Jet HZ 45769) Don't Bring Me Down / Shine A Little Love Golden Oldies 7" single (1980 December  USA  Jet/CBS ZS8 5153) The Best Of ELO LP album (1981  UK  Tellydisc TELLY 7) Discovery CD album (1983  USA  Jet ZK 35769) Discovery LP album (1987  UK  Epic 450083 1) Discovery/Time LP album (1989  UK  Epic 465224-1) Discovery/Time CD album (1989  UK  Epic 465224-2) The Very Best Of The Electric Light Orchestra CD album (1989  UK  Telstar TCD 2370) Afterglow CD album (1990 June 15  USA  Epic Associated Z3K 46090) ELO Classics CD album (1990  USA  CBS Special Products A 21583) Don't Bring Me Down / Shine A Little Love Collectables 7" single (1991  USA  Jet/CBS ZS8 5153) ELO's Greatest Hits Volume Two LP album (1992  UK  Epic 471956 1) ELO's Greatest Hits Volume Two CD album (1992  UK  Epic 471956 2) The Very Best Of The Electric Light Orchestra CD album (1994  UK  Dino DINCD90) Discovery 24KT Gold CD album (1995  USA  Jet/Epic/Legacy ZK 64646) Strange Magic: The Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (1995  USA  Legacy/Epic Associated Z2K 64157) Donnie Brasco: Original Soundtrack Various Artists CD album (1997 February 25  USA  Hollywood Records 162 102-2) Light Years: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (1997 October 1  UK  Epic 489039 2) ELO Classics: Six Pack CD album (1997  USA  KRB Music Companies A 28027) Out Of The Blue Tour - Live At Wembley / Discovery VHS videotape (1998 December 8  USA  Image Entertainment ID4561ER) Out Of The Blue Tour - Live At Wembley / Discovery DVD (1999 January 19  USA  Image Entertainment ID4562ERDVD) Discovery VHS videotape (1999 April 6  UK  Eagle Rock ERE057) Pop Music: The Modern Era 1976-1999 Various Artists CD album (1999 October 12  USA  Sony 074646579428) Out Of The Blue Tour - Live At Wembley / Discovery DVD (2000 June 16  UK  Eagle Rock Entertainment EREDV 058) Flashback CD album (2000 November 21  USA  Epic/Legacy E3K 85123) Flashback CD album (2000 December 11  UK  Epic/Legacy 500931 2) Discovery CD album (2001 June 11  UK  Epic 5019052) Discovery CD album (2001 June 12  USA  Epic/Legacy EK 85420) The Ultimate Collection CD album (2001 October 22  UK  Sony Music STVCD126) Mullets Rock! Various Artists CD album (2003 March 11  USA  Epic 86826E2K) The Essential Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2003 April 1  USA  Epic/Legacy EK 89072) The In-Laws Various Artists CD album (2003 May 20  USA  Rhino 8122738862) Discovery digital album (2003  UK  Epic 5099750190524) Discovery digital album (2003  USA  Epic/Legacy 696998542020) The Collection CD album (2003  UK  Marks & Spencer MS4800Q) Out Of The Blue Tour - Live At Wembley / Discovery DVD (2004 October 5  USA  Eagle Vision 801213008292) The Collection CD album (2004 November 12  UK  Sony/BMG 5099751866527) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2005 June 6  UK  Sony 5201292) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2005 June 6  UK  Sony 827969448922) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2005 August 2  USA  Epic/Legacy EK 94489) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2005 August 2  USA  Epic/Legacy 827969448922) Discovery/Time CD album (2006 April 10  UK  Sony/BMG 88697149622) The Best Of Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2006 November 1  USA  SRI Records 821603643971) ELO Classics CD album (2007 October 9  USA  KRB Music Companies KRB7045-2) Platinum CD album (2007 October 23  USA  Sony/BMG MEG2 53449) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra eco-friendly CD album (2007 February 2  UK  Sony/BMG 88697046492) Playlist: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2008 August 19  USA  Epic/Legacy 88697 29802 2) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra eco-friendly CD album (2009 March 3  USA  Sony/BMG 88697 48046 2) Original Album Classics CD album (2010 October 25  Europe  Sony 886997873423) Flashback CD album (2010 November 8  UK  Sony Music 88697807792) The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2011 May 30  UK  Sony 88697920962) The Essential Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2011 October 10  UK  Epic/Legacy 88698983612) The Essential Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2011 October 10  UK  Epic/Legacy 886443171084) The Essential Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2011 October 24  USA  Epic/Legacy 88697977522RE1) The Essential Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2011 October 10  UK  Epic/Legacy 886443171084) The Classic Albums Collection CD boxed set (2011 November  USA  Epic 8 89978 73262 0) The Classic Albums Collection CD boxed set (2011 November 14  UK  Epic 8 89978 73262 0) The Classic Albums Collection digital album (2014 June 10  UK  Epic/Legacy 886444622653) The Classic Albums Collection digital album (2014 June 10  USA  Epic/Legacy 886444622660) Flashback digital album (2014 June 27  Worldwide  Sony Music 886444707701) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2014 December 12  Worldwide  Sony 5099752012923) Pop Music: The Modern Era 1976-1999 Various Artists digital album (2014 December 12  USA  Sony 5099706579427) Out Of The Blue - Live At Wembley Blu-ray album (2015 March 14  UK  Eagle Rock ERSBD3017) Out Of The Blue - Live At Wembley Blu-ray album (2015 March 14  USA  Eagle Rock ERSBD3017) Discovery digital album (2015 November 13  UK  Epic/Legacy 886445594034) Discovery digital album (2015 November 13  USA  Epic/Legacy 886445594027) The Collection digital album (2015 November 27  USA  Legacy Recordings 5099751866527) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra LP album (2016 June 10  Europe  Epic/Legacy 88985312351) All Over The World: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2016 June 10  Europe  Epic/Legacy 520129 2) Discovery LP album (2016 July 1  UK  Sony 88985312321) Dicsovery clear vinyl LP album (2016 July 1  UK  Sony 88985312321) [Barnes & Noble exclusive]



Don't Bring Me Down (Edited 18 Greatest Hits LP Version)

Running Time: 3:42

Released On: 18 Greatest Hits LP album (1984  Australia  K-tel NA 674) Don't Bring Me Down (Time Tour)

Running Time: 5:23 (approximate)

Written By: Jeff Lynne

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Bev Bevan (drums, percussion), Richard Tandy (piano, synthesizer, electric piano), Kelly Groucutt (bass, backing vocals), Mik Kaminski (violin, synthesizer), Louis Clark (string synthesizer), Dave Morgan (acoustic guitar, vocoder)

Released On: Unreleased (bootlegged) E.L.O. Megamix (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

Running Time: 10:08

Written By: Jeff Lynne

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Mack (original recordings), unknown (remix)

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, piano), Bev Bevan (drums, percussion), Richard Tandy (keyboards, piano, sequence programming)

Released On: Getting To The Point 12" single (1986 July  UK  Epic TA 7317) Don't Bring Me Down (Heartbeat 86, March 15 1986)

Running Time: 5:12 (approximate)

Written By: Jeff Lynne

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Bev Bevan (drums), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Mik Kaminski (violin), Louis Clark (string keyboards), Dave Morgan (guitar, backing vocals), Martin Smith (bass, backing vocals)

Released On: Unreleased (bootlegged) Don't Bring Me Down (Balance Of Power Tour)

Running Time: 5:22 (approximate)

Written By: Jeff Lynne

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Bev Bevan (drums), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Mik Kaminski (violin), Louis Clark (string keyboards), Dave Morgan (guitar, backing vocals), Martin Smith (bass, backing vocals)

Released On: Unreleased (bootlegged) E.L.O. Mega-Hits (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

Running Time: 4:58

Written By: Jeff Lynne (except for Roll Over Beethoven , which is by Chuck Berry)

, which is by Chuck Berry) Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer), Bev Bevan (drums, percussion), Richard Tandy (piano, synthesizer, electric piano, guitar), Kelly Groucutt (bass)

Released On: E.L.O. Mega-Hits 12" promo single (1990  Spain  Spanien Epic MELP 3003) ELO Remix - 40 Principales (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

Running Time: 4:51

Written By: Jeff Lynne

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer), Bev Bevan (drums, percussion), Richard Tandy (piano, synthesizer, electric piano, guitar), Kelly Groucutt (bass)

Released On: ELO Remix - 40 Principales 7" promo single (1990  Spain  Spanien Epic MELP 3006) Don't Bring Me Down (VH1 Storytellers, April 20, 2001)

Running Time: 5:27 (approximate)

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (lead vocals, guitar), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Rosie Vela (backup vocals), Marc Mann (keyboards, guitar), Gregg Bissonette (drums), Matt Bissonette (bass), Peggy Baldwin (cello), Nancy Stein-Ross (cello)

Released On: Unreleased (bootlegged) Don't Bring Me Down (Los Angeles, May 2001)

Running Time: 4:09

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Ryan Ulyate & Marc Mann

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (lead vocals, guitar), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Rosie Vela (backup vocals), Marc Mann (keyboards, guitar), Gregg Bissonette (drums), Matt Bissonette (bass), Peggy Baldwin (cello), Sarah O'Brien (cello)

Released On:

Zoom Tour Live VHS videotape (2001 November 5  UK  Aviva International B00005Q5ME) Zoom Tour Live DVD (2001 November 13  USA  Image Entertainment ID1334DDDVD) Zoom Tour Live VHS videotape (2001 November 13  USA  Image Entertainment ID1333DD) Zoom Tour Live DVD (2003 July 28  UK  Sony BMG 74321 89860 9) Electric Light Orchestra Live CD album (2013 April 17  Japan  Avalon MICP-30043) Electric Light Orchestra Live CD album (2013 April 22  Europe  Frontiers Records FR CD 595E) Electric Light Orchestra Live digital album (2013 April 22  USA  Frontiers Records 886446781273) Electric Light Orchestra Live CD album (2013 April 23  USA  Frontiers Records FR CD 595E) Electric Light Orchestra Live digital album (2013 May 11  Europe  Frontiers Records 886446781273) Electric Light Orchestra Live LP album (2013 July 22  UK  Let Them Eat Vinyl LETV096LP) Original Album Classics CD album (2018 September 14  Europe  Sony 1 90758 81832 0)



Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix - Los Angeles, May 2001)

Running Time: 4:09

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Ryan Ulyate & Marc Mann

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (lead vocals, guitar), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Rosie Vela (backup vocals), Marc Mann (keyboards, guitar), Gregg Bissonette (drums), Matt Bissonette (bass), Peggy Baldwin (cello), Sarah O'Brien (cello)

Released On:

Zoom Tour Live DVD (2001 November 13  USA  Image Entertainment ID1334DDDVD) Zoom Tour Live DVD (2003 July 28  UK  Sony BMG 74321 89860 9)



Don't Bring Me Down (Solo Version)

Running Time: 4:02

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Steve Jay, Ryan Ulyate & Marc Mann

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, bass, drums, keyboards), Marc Mann (strings), Steve Jay (shakers, tambourine)

Released On:

College Road Trip DVD (2008 July 15  USA  Walt Disney ?) [as a 2:17 edit only] College Road Trip Blu-ray (2008 July 15  USA  Walt Disney ??) [as a 2:17 edit only] NHL 12 Xbox 360 videogame (2011 September 13  USA  EA Sports ?) NHL 12 Playstation videogame (2011 September 13  USA  EA Sports ??) Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra CD album (2012 September 26  Japan  Avalon MICP-30033) Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra LP album (2012 October 5  Europe  Frontiers Records FR LP 570) Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra Ecolbook CD album (2012 October 8  Europe  Frontiers Records FR CD 570E) Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra Ecolbook CD album (2012 October 9  USA  Frontiers Records FR CD 570E) Mr. Blue Sky - The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra Deluxe edition digital album (2012 October 9  USA  Frontiers Records ???) Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra LP album (2013 February 11  Europe  Let Them Eat Vinyl LETV070LP) Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra digital album (2018 January 12  Worldwide  Columbia/Legacy 886446781297) Original Album Classics CD album (2018 September 14  Europe  Sony 1 90758 81832 0)



Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix Solo Version)

Running Time: 2:17 [as edited from the College Road Trip DVD]

DVD] Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Steve Jay, Ryan Ulyate & Marc Mann

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, bass, drums, keyboards, vocoder), Marc Mann (strings), Steve Jay (shakers, tambourine)

Released On:

College Road Trip DVD (2008 July 15  USA  Walt Disney ?) [as a 2:17 edit only] College Road Trip Blu-ray (2008 July 15  USA  Walt Disney ??) [as a 2:17 edit only]



Don't Bring Me Down (Bungalow Palace - March 2011)

Running Time: 0:21

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Steve Jay

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Richard Tandy (piano)

Released On:

Mr. Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO documentary download (2012 December  USA  Daft As A Brush ?) Live In Hyde Park DVD album (2015 September 11  Europe  Eagle Rock EREDV1185) Live In Hyde Park DVD album (2015 September 11  USA  Eagle Rock EV307199) Live In Hyde Park Blu-ray album (2015 September 11  Europe  Eagle Rock ERBRD5268) Live In Hyde Park Blu-ray album (2015 September 11  USA  Eagle Rock EVB335149)



Don't Bring Me Down (Hyde Park - September 14, 2014)

Running Time: 4:17

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (guitar, vocals), Richard Tandy (piano, keyboards), Milton McDonald (guitars, backing vocals), Mike Stevens (guitars, backing vocals), Marcus Byrne (keyboards, Pro Tools), Bernie Smith (keyboards), Lee Pomeroy (bass), Donavan Hepburn (drums), Mick Wilson (percussion, backing vocals), Melanie Lewis-McDonald (backing vocals), Iain Hornal (backing vocals)

Released On:

Live In Hyde Park DVD album (2015 September 11  Europe  Eagle Rock EREDV1185) Live In Hyde Park DVD album (2015 September 11  USA  Eagle Rock EV307199) Live In Hyde Park Blu-ray album (2015 September 11  Europe  Eagle Rock ERBRD5268) Live In Hyde Park Blu-ray album (2015 September 11  USA  Eagle Rock EVB335149)



Don't Bring Me Down (Porchester Hall - November 9, 2015)

Running Time: 4:09

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Lee Pomeroy (bass, backing vocals), Richard Tandy (piano, keyboards, vocoder), Milton McDonald (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Stevens (guitar, backing vocals), Bernie Smith (keyboards), Marcus Byrne (keyboards, Pro-Tools), Donavan Hepburn (drums), , Melanie Lewis-McDonald (backing vocals), Iain Hornal (backing vocals, keyboards, guitar), Amy Langley (cello), Rachael Lander (cello), Ellie Stanford (violin)

Released On:

Unreleased (bootlegged)



Don't Bring Me Down (BBC Radio Theatre - November 12, 2015)

Running Time: 4:26

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Lee Pomeroy (bass, backing vocals), Richard Tandy (piano, keyboards, vocoder), Milton McDonald (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Stevens (guitar, backing vocals), Bernie Smith (keyboards), Marcus Byrne (keyboards, Pro-Tools), Donavan Hepburn (drums), , Iain Hornal (backing vocals, keyboards, guitar), Amy Langley (cello), Rachael Lander (cello), Unknown (viola), Unknown (viola), Ellie Stanford + 7 Unknown others (violin)

Released On:

Unreleased (bootlegged)



Don't Bring Me Down (Irving Plaza - November 20, 2015)

Running Time: 4:36

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Lee Pomeroy (bass), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Milton McDonald (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Stevens (guitar, backing vocals), Bernie Smith (keyboards), Marcus Byrne (keyboards), Donavan Hepburn (drums), Melanie Lewis-McDonald (backing vocals), Iain Hornal (backing vocals), Leah Zeger (violin), Leah Metzler (cello), Ameena Maria Khawaja (cello)

Released On:

Unreleased (bootlegged)



Don't Bring Me Down (Fonda Theatre - November 24, 2015)

Running Time: 4:34

Produced By: Jeff Lynne

Engineered By: Unknown

Performed By: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar), Lee Pomeroy (bass), Richard Tandy (keyboards), Milton McDonald (guitar, backing vocals), Mike Stevens (guitar, backing vocals), Bernie Smith (keyboards), Marcus Byrne (keyboards), Donavan Hepburn (drums), Melanie Lewis-McDonald (backing vocals), Iain Hornal (backing vocals), Leah Zeger (violin), Leah Metzler (cello), Ameena Maria Khawaja (cello)

Released On:

Unreleased (bootlegged)





Tours

Don't Bring Me Down was played on all tours following its release.

Only the live performance from the PBS performance for the aborted Zoom tour has been officially released. Performances of from the Time and Balance Of Power tours have not been officially released, although they have been bootlegged from various sources.

Both the Time and Balance Of Power tours, as well as the Heartbeat 86 charity concert, used the same alternate arrangement of the song. In the show setlists, it was the next to last song performed with a long drum intro to get the crowd worked up. Verse 4 was replaced with a guitar solo. Verse 5 was followed with three "I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor, don't bring me down" lines before ending the song and completely cutting the short piano bridge sections. In addition to these song changes, on the Time tour, Kelly sang harmony vocals throughout the song. On the Balance Of Power tour, bassist Martin Smith sang all harmony vocals.

For all performances (except for a few early Time tour performances) the song was interrupted by an audience participation section. For this section, Jeff stopped singing on the last part of verse 5 ("no, no..." to "don't bring me down"), allowing the audience to sing it. Following this last part, Kelly Groucutt on the Time tour and Jeff on the Balance Of Power tour tried to get the audience to sing it louder and they played it again. Claiming he was not satisfied with the audience's performance, Jeff (on all tours) again tried to get the audience to sing even louder and the band played the part again. Satisfied, the song continued with verse 5's "no no no no no no no no no no" line.

The arrangement for the aborted Zoom tour and the Storytellers performance was another completely different arrangement. This time, Rosie Vela sang all harmony vocals throughout. Verse 4 was replaced with a guitar solo and an additional "I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor, don't bring me down" line was added after the guitar solo. The "Don't bring me down, no no no no no no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo" line of verse 5 used a very different rock-a-billy type of beat and guitar bit that seemed to take many fans by surprise. The first guitar and piano bridge was extended greatly, with significant piano contributions from Richard Tandy. And finally an additional "I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor, don't bring me down" line was added to the song's end.

The 2014 Hyde Park performance uses the original album/single arrangement almost exactly, but for the end being slightly extended a few more beats.

Also of note, all live performances of the song changed the "ooh-ee-hoo" sections in the verses to "ooh-ooh-hoo" except the 2014 Hyde Park performance which used the original "ooh-ee-hoo".

Pictures

UK 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153

(small center hole) UK 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153

(scored center hole) UK 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153

(large center hole) UK 7" vinyl single * Jet * S JET 153

(alternate label) UK 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153

(French hybrid) UK 7" vinyl promo single * Jet * JET 153 UK 12" single * Jet * JET 12-153 USA 7" vinyl single * Jet * CBS ZS9 5060 USA 7" vinyl promo single * Jet * CBS ZS9 5060 UK Discovery album * Jet * JET LX 500 USA 7" vinyl single * Golden Oldies Jet * CBS ZS8 5153 USA 7" vinyl single * Golden Oldies Jet * CBS ZS8 5153 (alternate label) USA 7" vinyl single * Collectibles Jet * CBS ZS8 5153 Argentina 7" vinyl single * Epic * 40.208

Image used with kind permission of Jon Lock Australia 7" vinyl single * Jet * JS 009 Belgium 7" vinyl single * Jet * ZS9 5060 Canada 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET ZS9 5060 Canada 7" vinyl single * Columbia * E4-1058 France 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 503

(yellow label) France 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 503

(red label) France 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 503

(silver label) Germany 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET S 503 Germany Promo 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET S 503 Italy 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 503 Italy promo 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 503 Japan 7" vinyl single * Jet * 06SP 414 Malaysia 7" vinyl single * JBR * JBRE 223

Image used with kind permission of Jon Lock Mexico 7" vinyl single * Epic * MEX-71779

Image used with kind permission of Jon Lock New Zealand 7" vinyl single * Jet * JS 009

Image used with kind permission of Jon Lock Poland flexi-disc single * Tanpress * R-1013

Image used with kind permission of Malcolm M. Henderson Spain stock 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153

Spain promo 7" vinyl single * Jet * JET 153 Spain ELO Remix - 40 Principales 7" promo single * Epic * MELP 3006 [1990] South Africa 7" vinyl single * Jet * SSC 1896

Image used with kind permission of Jon Lock UK Discovery VHS videotape (Eagle Rock ERE 057) NHL12 XBox game containing newer solo version NHL12 Playstation game containing newer solo version Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra album containing newer solo version Worldwide release of Wembley Or Bust book set -- Genesis Publications ISBN 9781905662524

Taken from the June 24, 2017 live concert at Wembley Stadium. The single is misprinted, with the label stating Xanadu is on the A-side and Don't Bring Me Down on the B-side. However, the songs that play are reversed with Don't Bring Me Down on the A-side.

Use in Movies and TV Programs

Electric Light Orchestra's Don't Bring Me Down



Donnie Brasco (1997)

(1997) The In-Laws during the bachelorette party scene (2003)

during the bachelorette party scene (2003) The Pacifier trailer (2005)

trailer (2005) Doctor Who episode Love And Monsters (2006)

episode (2006) My Name Is Earl episode Jump For Joy (2006)

episode (2006) Stranger Than Fiction trailer (2006)

trailer (2006) Flushed Away trailer (2006)

trailer (2006) The Heartbreak Kid trailer (2007)

Jeff Lynne's solo Don't Bring Me Down



College Road Trip (2008)

(2008) My Name Is Earl episode Reading Is A Fundamental Case (2008)

episode (2008) Furry Vengeance (2010)

(2010) Paul (2011)

(2011) Inhumans episode Those Who Would Destroy Us (2017)

Use in Advertising

Electric Light Orchestra's Don't Bring Me Down



This song has not been used in any known advertisements

Jeff Lynne's solo Don't Bring Me Down



Budweiser Select 55 (Late 2009  USA)

Cover Versions

Stefan Hallberg on his Bring Mich Nicht Um single (1979) (Note: retitled from Don't Bring Me Down to Bring Mich Nicht Um )

single (1979) (Note: retitled from to ) Jack Livingston Orchestra and Singers on their A Tribute To ELO album (early 1980s)

album (early 1980s) Unknown (computer programmed only) in the Commodore 64 computer game Frantic Freddie (1983)

(1983) OrKestra during live performances from 1987 to 1991

David Hallyday on his Ooh La La single (1990)

single (1990) King on an album of unknown origin (199?)

Ballroom Blitz on their Don't Bring Me Down promo only single (199?)

promo only single (199?) O:pl Bastards (yes, that's spelled correctly) on their Don't Bring Me Down 12" single (199?)

12" single (199?) Piersi on their My juz sa Amerykany album under th title On nie jest cham (1993)

album under th title (1993) Electric Light Orchestra Part II on their One Night - Live in Australia album (1997)

album (1997) Buzzoven on their ...At A Loss album (1998)

album (1998) Russ Be-Bop's Roadrunners on their Down In One album (1999)

album (1999) The Coats on their The Coats Collection album (2000)

album (2000) Yeti Girls on the Punk Chartbusters, Volume 2 album (2000)

album (2000) Geese Fighters on their Tribute To ELO tribute album (2000)

tribute album (2000) Steve Kubit on his Automatic Devil Static album (2000)

album (2000) Binghamton Crosbys during live performances only (2000)

The Orchestra from live performances (2000s)

Wildride And The Blues Blazers on their The Kristen Album album (2000s)

album (2000s) J Church on their Meaty, Beaty, Shitty Sounding album (2001)

album (2001) SWAG on the Lynne Me Your Ears tribute album (2001)

tribute album (2001) Nativo on his Futuro album (2001)

album (2001) Nick Alexander on his Eternal Life: The Party Album album under the title Don't Take That Crown (2001)

album under the title (2001) Rockaria during live performances (2001)

Jirí Schelinger on his Jsem svítaní album under the title Tak Nehraj Dál (2002)

album under the title (2002) String Cheese Incident during live shows only (2002)

Status Quo on their Riffs album (UK issue only) (2003)

album (UK issue only) (2003) Burn on their Burn 1 album (2003)

album (2003) Guggemusig Gryffefrösch on their da bisch platt! album (2003)

album (2003) Michal Hudcek from an unknown origin (2000s)

Noise Drop on the Don't Bring Me Down 12" single (2000s)

12" single (2000s) Live Element on the Don't Bring Me Down 12" single (2005)

12" single (2005) Green Street Green on their High Diver album (2005)

album (2005) P. Hux on his Homemade Spaceship: The Music Of ELO Performed By P. Hux album (5/2005)

album (5/2005) The Penfifteen Club on their Feel It album (2005)

album (2005) Shelo during live performances (mid-2000s)

L.I.N.D.A. on the Love And Monsters episode of Doctor Who (2006)

episode of (2006) Leo Minor on his Sudden City Death single (2006)

single (2006) Seventy Six on their Gone Is Winter album (2006)

album (2006) L.E.O. on their Alpacas Orgling album (2006)

album (2006) The Magic Orchestra on their Classic Nights album (2006)

album (2006) Puffy Amiyumi on their Hataraku Otoko album (11/2006)

album (11/2006) The Minders on the Bridging The Distance album (2007)

album (2007) Fudge on their Who Wants Fudge album (2007)

album (2007) Of Montreal live on tour (2007)

Tufts Beelzebubs during a live performances as part of a medley (9/2007)

OK Go during live performances (2008)

The Northern Kings on their Reborn album (2008) with a bridge that incorportes the melody of Twilight

album (2008) with a bridge that incorportes the melody of Electric Live Orchestra during live performances (2008)

The ELO Experience during live performances (2008)

Dynamik on their Now In Color album (2008)

album (2008) Giuliano Palma & The BlueBeaters on their Boogaloo album (2008)

album (2008) Project N on their Don't Bring Me Down single (2008)

single (2008) New Pornographers during live performances (2008)

ApologetiX on their Recovery album under the title Don't Bring Me Cows (2009)

album under the title (2009) The Hit Co on the Best Of The Brits album (2009)

album (2009) arcadecoma on the ELO: The Video Game OST album (2014)

album (2014) acting troupe in the Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour stage play (2015)

stage play (2015) The ELO Encounter during live performances (2017)

Sample Uses

Goodie Goodie Mixer by Josef Van Vliet (1980)

by Josef Van Vliet (1980) Shonen Knife by Shonen Knife (1991)

by Shonen Knife (1991) U Don't Know Me by Kid Rock on the The Polyfuze Method album (1993)

by Kid Rock on the album (1993) Because I Got It Like That by Jungle Bros. (1998)

by Jungle Bros. (1998) Control Freaq by Felix Da Housecat on the Kittenz & Thee Glitz album (2001)

by Felix Da Housecat on the album (2001) Push It (Bassbin Twins Remix) by Salt-n-Pepa (2004)

by Salt-n-Pepa (2004) Don't Bring Me Down by Streetlife DJs (2008)

by Streetlife DJs (2008) Play Your Part (Pt. 2) by Girl Talk on the Feed The Animals album (2008)

by Girl Talk on the album (2008) Don't Stop by Girl Talk on the Feed The Animals album (2008)

by Girl Talk on the album (2008) Stumble Out of Bed by The Bran Flakes on the I Have Hands album (2009)

by The Bran Flakes on the album (2009) Life Is Good by Dallas Austin Experience on the 8dazeaweakend album (2010)

by Dallas Austin Experience on the album (2010) Go Right Ahead by The Hives on the Lex Hives album (2012)

by The Hives on the album (2012) Descent by Gyrotron on the Snow Days Vol. 1 album (2015)

by Gyrotron on the album (2015) Shit by Neil Cicierega on the Mount Moodes album (2017)

Sheet Music



Sheet music as published in the UK.



Sheet music as published in the USA.

Promotional Videos and TV Performances

Discovery

There was avideo produced, showing the band performing the song in a crystal city and featuring reddish overtones over the entire video. The video starts with a cartoon of a majorette dancing to the drum intro. It then shows a marquee that spells out the name of the song, for which each letter is changed to a star on the beats of the song. Then it shows a cartoon of a glowing neon hotdog (yes, a hotdog!) over footage of the band playing the song. This fades and most of the rest of the video is of the band alone, performing on stage, however because the song has no string elements, the three string players are playing madly on various keyboard instruments instead. The set features the same large crystals as seen in thevideo. Briefly, during the song's third verse ("What happened to the girl...") the cartoon of the majorette is shown again. And on the beginning of verse five ("You're looking good...") the neon hotdog is shown again. Just after the end of the fifth verse, the view changes to a cartoon of the ELO spaceship flying out the window of a hall full of jukeboxes, followed by it flying out of the image of an eye towards the camera. From verse six to the end of the song, more footage of the band playing on the soundstage is shown. At the very end of the song-- the final echoes and the door slam part-- the view changes to a burning fire that engulfs the screen and thealbum title text is shown. Although not explicit, the video seems to invoke a sense of fire and brimstone hellishness, with its heavy red tint and the fire shown at the end. Perhaps this is intentional given that the song's lyrics are about "don't bring me down" as in down to hell. Thispromo video can be seen HERE

There is another version of this Don't Bring Me Down video that was used as part of the Discovery video bonus feature on the Out Of The Blue Tour - Live At Wembley video and DVD releases. This version uses the same basic footage at the standard album version, but it has an even deeper red overtone, applied to the point of oversaturation. Also, the end of the video stops showing the band performing on stage and instead uses different footage to show the films credits. From verse six onwards, the view changes to a close-up of the hands holding the spaceship from the cover of the Discovery album while the Discovery promo movie's credits roll. The video ends with a brief view of the Discovery album cover, the Jet log, and then a copyright notice of "1979 C.B.S. INC." This Don't Bring Me Down promo video can be seen HERE.

The music video was aired on the UK's Top Of The Pops on a September 6, 1979 episode; on the September 20, 1979 episode of the same show, the song was played while dance troupe Legs & Co. danced to it. The band played this song live on television during the Heartbeat 86 stage performance that was broadcast in the UK. The VH1 Storytellers and PBS Zoom Tour Live performances were also filmed and broadcast in the USA.

The neon hotdog from the music must have made quite an impression on some people. At the September 2014 Hyde Park concert with Jeff Lynne, the images on the computerized stage background includes several shots of a similar neon hotdog.

Fan Comments

Enter comments only about this song. (Inappropriate comments will be removed.)

"One of these days you're gonna break your glass" When I was a kid, I always thought this line was meant to be "One of these days you're gonna break your ass, but since Jeff couldn't say such a dirty word (by American 1979 standards) on radio, he changed it to "glass". I always laughed at the thought. I don't know how true that really is, but I always sing it that way when singing along. Funny how the video section doesn't mention the drummer hitting a nonexistant crash cymbal several times throughout the video :D Surely someone must've noticed that before?! Also there's a 1990 CD release called "ELO Classics" that has horrible tape drag/speed fluctuations throughout almost the entire CD, including this song (though not as horrifyingly noticeable as in "evil woman" past the 2 minute mark... the string sections in that cause goosebumps, and not the good kind)... Whoever had the job of ripping the tape and/or mastering that trainwreck of a CD clearly didn't listen to whatever the hell he was doing. Even worse: the same bad master tape rips were used for other/later CDs

-Anonymous

Editor's Note: Actually Bev is hitting a cymbal, however, it is raised very high and sometimes out of frame. You can see it in the long shots. It was probably quite high so that it wouldn't obscure him from the camera. There is no doubt that the tail end of 1979 was ELO's heyday. To hear ELO, all you had to do was turn on your radio. Shine A Little Love, Confusion and Don't Bring Me Down were playing non-stop across the FM dial. Stacks of the album and singles flew off the record store shelves. There were some who complained that ELO went "DISCO" on Discovery and that was even the meaning behind the album title "VERY-DISCO" just reversed. ELO wasn't alone - Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Elton John and even Kiss had disco singles around that time frame. But then there was Don't Bring Me Down - with its almost 1950's feel, head banging rock and roll anthem. Finally, some ammunition to show the world that Jeff Lynne can rock with the best of them.

-Corey Gomel Who did the art of the girl and the hotdog in the music video? The runout etching of the original USA single includes the letters "AZ". Is this Allen Zentz of Allen Zentz Mastering ? The door slam at the end - I think I read somewhere that it could be Bev plonking his drumsticks down on the snare drum. Another possibility.... Editor's Note: It has been confirmed by interviews with the band to be the fire door. WOW. This breakdown, start to finish, is unbelievably impressive. I *did* notice the lack of strings; it actually disappointed me. I played piano, and liked hearing rock mixed with a classical arrangement orchestrated into the song; that complexity and attention to detail impressed me. I bought 'Discovery' in the US on original release in high school; also have CD release uploaded onto my smartphone, along with his personal 'Mr. Blue Sky' re-release, b/c I know labels have taken advantage of artists, so for his sake, I purchased it. I just listened to the two of them side by side, even though I knew the re-release was slightly different. The versions are very close -a casual listener wouldn't catch the difference, I'd guess. That's a tribute to Jeff's precision. I never knew the upfront count wasn't necessary. I also never knew what that sound was at the end; it's different on Jeff's re-release, but close enough that again- don't think a casual listener would notice. I wish I'd discovered your site earlier than just now. THANK YOU. fucking neon hotdog. WHY THE HELL?

-Fan artwork by Lynnette "Cicky" Johansson

Quotations

Don't Bring Me Down (Standard Release)

"The lyrics on Discovery , the album, talk about love and the gamut that love runs in self-awareness, from being 'up' in Shine A Little Love (the first cut) to being 'down' in Don't Bring Me Down (the last cut). [...] Discovery closes with Don't Bring Me Down, a rock and roll song if ever one was written. It even has a Little Richard-like piano chording running underneath the heavy bass line. Of the many songs on the album, this song has the most hooks-- complete with phased drumming and sound pockets filled with production tidbits. Lyrically, most of this is nonsense-- but it's the type that has made rock and roll (and the song will in places remind of every rock song from the Beatles to the Beach Boys-- good stuff)."

Unknown (1979 Summer - The Vinyl Edition Volume 2, Number 2) "The final cut [on Discovery ], Don't Bring Me Down, is as close to rock & roll as ELO gets, with heavy drums and a Tom Petty-60's beat. A group like the Atlantics could cover the song and make a fortune."

Unknown (1979 - from a published Discovery review of unknown origin) "Jeff Lynne: 'On Don't Bring Me Down, I did all that. I did the whole backing track and everything in about two hours. And I wrote the words in about twenty minutes. Put 'em all down, finished the whole record in a day. But my job... played all the instruments meself.' Bev Bevan: 'The beginning of Don't Bring Me Down, I thought, What on earth is he playing there. Y'know, he's got my old... one of my old drum tracks and he's in there messing around with it, pounding this thing out on the piano. And it ended up being one our favorite ever ELO tracks.' Jeff Lynne: Made a big long loop so that it went, BOM! BAH! BOM! BOM! BAH! And then just played that about four times and then recorded about four minutes of it on the twenty four track. And that's when I started pounding the piano along with it. It's a ghost drummer on that one.'"

Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan (August 8, 1980 - The ELO Story radio show) "A four track single featuring Mr. Blue Sky, Across The Border, Telephone Line and Don't Bring Me Down will also be out at the same time [as the Four Light Years box set]."

Unknown (March 28, 1981 - Record Mirror )

Editor's Note: This four track single, The ELO EP 2 was eventually cancelled. "Don't Bring Me Down, I actually love that. [unintelligible] That's a great thing to play [in concert]."

Bev Bevan (1986 - British radio interview by Paul Sexton) "By September, exceptional public demand ensured that Don't Bring Me Down (Jet 153) was the next single, and as ever, with an eye on the main chance, Jet advertised its forthcoming release in the press dedicating it to Skylab, NASA's space station which was about to fall back to Earth! The B-side was Dreaming Of 4000 from Third Day [sic], and neither side was edited. Once again, there was a 12-inch released (Jet 12 153), and it featured the same sleeve as the 7-inch, which was a detail of the Arab boy running through the desert, taken from the LP's inner gatefold. The only differences were different coloured writing (the title on the 7-inch is in red, but it's lilac on the 12-inch), and the live photo of the band on the reverse is larger on the 7-inch than on the 12-inch, as you might have expected. The 12-inch also has a border around both the photo and the edge of the sleeve, which the 7-inch doesn't have. Both sleeves spell Hugh's surname wrongly! Despite the 12-inch not being extended, sales of it no doubt helped the track quickly to reach No.3 (ELO's biggest hit ever under their own steam), again remaining in the charts for nine weeks. The 7-inch is worth about £3, and the 12-inch about £5-6."

Andrew Whiteside (1992 - Face The Music fanzine #11) "Wishing's delicate synth outro floats off gently into the distance, leaving us totally unprepared for the crashing interruption of Don't Bring Me Down, the song that bursts unannounced through the disco door in size ten bright red Doctor Martens, and then proceeds to trample all over the other songs, cowering in the corner wearing their nice new party dresses. The mindless, if likeable drum loop, coupled with obligatory radio-friendly singalong chorus and novelty hood of 'groooos' (apparently Norwegian for, erm, gross!), made this ELO's highest placed chart single ever, and a surefire concert favourite. What is often overlooked is that it's also the first ELO song not to feature strings. This fact was not lost on Jeff Lynne, who ensured that every ELO album from this point on would feature a rocker as its closing track (before of you get smart, Hold On Tight is the last track on Time as Epilogue is just that-- an epilogue!)."

Andrew Whiteside (1992 - Face The Music fanzine #11) "Perhaps [Jeff had] noticed that Don't Bring Me Down, their first record with no strings had become their biggest hit; but for whatever reason he called a band meeting at his Midlands home that summer. By the end of that afternoon, Hugh and Melvyn were no longer in the band, and Mik would henceforth only be used on tours and video appearances."

Andrew Whiteside (1992 - Face The Music fanzine #13) "As with Three Light Years , an EP was originally scheduled to promote the Four Light Years set, and it was even advertised in the press. It comprised of four tracks, namely Don't Bring Me Down, Telephone Line, Mr. Blue Sky and Across The Border. Sleeve artwork was designed (eventually used practically unaltered for the Here Is The News/Ticket To The Moon 7-inch) and it was even give a catalogue number (Jet ELO EP2) before being unaccountably withdrawn. I don't know if any copies leaked out, but if so, the owner could name their price."

Andrew Whiteside (1992 - Face The Music fanzine #13) "With the song Don't Bring Me Down Jeff had abandoned the original E.L.O. concept for the first time, as it didn't include any strings. This single however became the biggest hit for the group. Jeff: 'On Don't Bring Me Down I did all that, did the whole backing track and everything in about two hours and wrote the words in about 20 minutes and finished the whole record, mixed it the same night and it was finished, you know, within a day! And it was the biggest hit we ever had.' It was one of the few songs Jeff wrote in the studio..."

Patrik Guttenbacher, Marc Haines, & Alexander von Petersdorff (1996 Unexpected Messages ) "We weren't singing 'Bruce', no. We were actually singing 'groos' which I don't know what it meant. At the time, I just said it. I was singing the lead vocal and there was a hole and I went, 'groos.' And when we got to the end of the track, Mack, the engineer said, 'How did you know that?' And I said, 'What?' And he said, 'Groos.' He said it means 'greetings' in German. And I went, 'Oh, that's good. Well let's keep it in.' Because it sounded like a daft word and it means 'greetings' so... Anyway, as soon as we got on the road with it, everybody's singing 'Bruce' I ended up singing 'Bruce' as well. [The door closing at the end of the song is] just a metal fire door in the studio in Musicland. It's a big heavy, y'know, heavy thing. And it seals the building off, y'know, completely off from any fire. Yeah, that's one of quite a few [that uses a drum loop from another song] actually. It is a mystery [what song was used for the drum loop in Don't Bring Me Down] to me. I've forgotten how I looped that one. I remember winding the tape 'round like two mike stands and somebody with a pencil... just to get the right length at, uh, at fifteen. I remember doing it. I've done loads of loops like that, y'know, before the days of ProTools and stuff. Y'know, you used to have to improvise a lot on techniques."

Jeff Lynne (circa late 1990s or early 2000s - Off The Record interview with Uncle Joe Benson) "No, kids, Lynne's not singing 'Bruce' in the backing vocals for the [ Discovery ] album's inspired rocker Don't Bring Me Down. 'No,' [says Jeff Lynne,] 'it's groos-- just a word I made up in the studio to fill up this hole. Everybody loved it so I left it in. Mack-- our great engineer at Musicland-- said, How'd you know that? He told me that groos sounded just like the German word for Greetings. But everyone heard it as Bruce and at all the shows I ended up singing it that way too.'"

David Wild (2000 liner notes for Flashback ) "The string [of ELO hits] gave ELO plenty of time to work on... various solo projects, most notably Lynne's maiden voyage, the vastly underrated and nearly-forgotten Doin' That Crazy Thing."

Unknown (May 2001 - 2001 ELO remasters press kit) "I looped two bars of drumming taken from a different song on Discovery (you'll have to guess which one) and then I overdubbed eight grand pianos, a cement mixer, and two crates of Newcastle Brown Ale and that got the ball rolling."

Jeff Lynne (2000 - Flashback ) "It's a great big galloping ball of distortion. I wrote it in the studio at the last minute, 'cos I felt there weren't enough loud ones on the [ Discovery ] album. This was just what I was after."

Jeff Lynne (2001 - Discovery Remaster) "One of their biggest hits, Don't Bring Me Down, struck a death-knell for the band by having, gasp, no strings attached. Soon after the album, the string players were abruptly dismissed with a letter signed by all the other members of the band."

Jim Irvin (August, 2001 - The Bullring Variations article in Mojo ) "Don't Bring Me Down (the first ELO single not to feature strings and producers favourite for sampling) became the group's biggest single hit (No 3 in the USA and No 4 in the UK in August 1979)."

Author Unknown (March 31, 2003 - website only expanded liner notes for ELO 2 remaster CD)

Editor's note: Actually the chart positions are reversed. It was #4 in the USA and #3 in the UK. " Discovery , released in 1979, was ELO's most successful album worldwide and produced yet more hits, including... Don't Bring Me Down, the first ELO song not to feature strings."

Rob Caiger (2003 liner notes for The Collection ) "Don't Bring Me Down, perhaps the band's most memorable song, was also distinguished because it was their first hit that didn't use a string section."

Jaan Uhelszki (April 1 2003 liner notes for The Essential Electric Light Orchestra ) "No, Don't Bring Me Down wasn't by Roxy Music..."

Dom Passantino (October 24, 2005 - Stylus online magazine) "ELO's Jeff Lynne made three of the most over-the-top enjoyable radio hits of the 1970s: Evil Woman, Don't Bring Me Down and Turn to Stone."

Peter Relic and Brian Hiatt (November 17, 2005 - Rolling Stone issue #967) "The band's biggest hit has also created an enduring controversy that rages to this day on internet message boards: what, exactly, does Lynne say after he's sung 'Don't bring me down? It sounds like 'Bruce, some say it's 'gross, but the answer seems to be that it's the German word Grss [sic], from the expression of greeting, 'Grss dich.' It's an in-joke, apparently."

David Cheal (December 8, 2005 - The Daily Telegraph ) "Don't Bring Me Down is Jeff and Richard and a drum tape loop."

Rob Caiger (July 3, 2006 - Showdown mailing list) "[The Doctor Who episode] Love and Monsters raised the question, what are ELO singing in the chorus of Don't Bring me Down, that funny little word in the middle? Sounds like 'Grooss'. As sung by Elton and Mr Skinner and the stalwarts (deceased) of LINDA. Well, one of ELO's managers saw the episode, heard the podcast, and got in touch. It is, indeed, grooss. He says it wasn't supposed to mean anything until the band's German studio engineer told them after the recording session that it was slang for 'All Right!' And just to confuse things, after that they also started singing 'Bruce!' in concerts. So there you go."

Russell T. Davies (October 11, 2006 - Doctor Who Magazine #374) "Don't Bring Me Down is a loop of a drum track. It's just two bars from another song; the loop would have been, I don't knowk seven, eight feet long. So we were all in the studio with analogue tape wrapped around mic stands and pencils until you could finish looping, record it onto the multi-track, for like four minutes. It was like a drum machine before its time, basically."

Jeff Lynne (April 2008 - Mean magazine) "Songwriter and Electric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynne was awarded Million-Air certificates for Turn To Stone, which has earned over one million airplays, and Don't Bring Me Down, for having over two million airplays. BMI's Linda Livingston and Phil Graham presented Lynne the certificates at a recent visit to his studio in Los Angeles."

Unknown (2008 November 4 - BMI website news) "I wouldn't say Don't Bring Me Down was [a disco song]."

Jeff Lynne (April 19, 2010 - interview on K-Earth 101FM) "And Don't Bring Me Down, I love actually. It's one of me favorite ELO tracks, yeah. It rocks."

Bev Bevan (August 29, 2010 - Isle of Wight Radio) "Well, Don't Bring Me Down for example [sounds great on the radio]. I mean it's the ultimate, isn't it. When that comes on, you think, 'Wow!' It's dynamism all the way through, isn't it."

Steve Wright (October 5, 2012 - Steve Wright In The Afternoon BBC Radio) "Don't Bring Me Down [is an attempt at a] big, nasty rock and roll song. I think it came off because it is a big, nasty rock and roll song."

Jeff Lynne (October 9, 2012 - L.A. Weekly ) "[Don't Bring Me Down is] basically a snare that's just crushed to death by a UREI [1176]. That's as flat as I could have it without it blowing up or becoming a fuzz box. That's how I did it in the first place, and I did the same method on the new version. On the original record, that was actually a drum loop from a different song. I just took two tracks of drumming-- bass drum and snare, with a bit of leakage on the hi-hat-- put it on the 2-track machine and did the old trick, wound it round a mic stand and my old pencil. I think it was two bars long. Recorded that onto the 24-track, and then I was ready to go. [...] Believe it or not, I think that had eight pianos on it, all doing the same note. God knows what I was expecting to happen. It just gets eight times louder! If you turn it down, it's still only one piano. It doesn't track like a guitar [recorded with multiple passes], because a guitar bends a bit. You can slightly knock it out of tune, and you get this big chorus effect. A piano doesn't do that, of course, until you bang it out of tune."

Jeff Lynne (November 1, 2012 - Mix online magazine) "Songs such as Strange Magic, Do Ya, Mr. Blue Sky and Don't Bring Me Down have permanently fused with the very fabric of pop culture."

Chaz Lipp (November 1, 2012 - The Morton Report ) "[Fans were singing 'Bruce'] all the years we were playing [Don't Bring Me Down] on stage, you know, and I've gone to all the trouble to make it 'grroosss' because it meant 'greetings' in German and I didn't know, I just made this word up. And the engineer said, 'Wow, that's... How's you know that word?' I said, 'I didn't know it.' And [I] said, 'What is it?' He said, 'Grüß, it means greetings.' So anyway, we'd do it on stage and it'd go down great 'cause it was a big, loud thing. And everybody would come to that bit and go, 'Bruce!' So I just joined them in there and starting singing 'Bruce' because it sounded funnier than 'groos'. That's what it is. I actually recorded it as 'Bruce' this time. [I made up 'groos'] because there was a hole in the song. I just needed a word so I come up with the first thing I thought of, you know, like a 'groos', that bit, yeah."

Jeff Lynne (2012 November 30 - The Adam Carolla Show ) "The closing track on ELO's eighth album is their highest-charting single in the U.S. (it reached No. 4). Propelled by a marching drum loop, Don't Bring Me Down was the group's last classic cut. The following year they recorded the Xanadu soundtrack with Olivia Newton-John; in 1981, they made the snoozy concept album Time ."

Michael Gallucci (December 30, 2012 - Ultimate Classic Rock online magazine article 'Top 10 Electric Light Orchestra Songs') "I'll tell you what. That [misunderstanding of 'groos' in Don't Bring Me Down] is all a misunderstanding. I was in Musicland Studios in Germany, and I was putting a lead vocal onto the song and there was a gap (sings 'Don't Bring Me Down'), and I just sang 'Groose.' I was doing it just to fill a hole up, I wasn't gonna use it. Then the engineer, Mack, who is German, suddenly got on the talkback and said, 'How did you know that word?' And I said, 'What word?' And he said, 'Groose. It means Greetings in German.' I said, 'F**king hell, I never knew that.' (Laughs) Anyway, I said, 'Let's leave it in, then, it sounds all right. Groose.' Of course, when we started playing it on the road, everybody's singing 'Bruce!' (Laughs.) And I'm going, 'Oh, shit.' I'm not gonna go about explaining every night that it's not 'Bruce,' it's 'Groose.' (Laughs) So I said, 'Oh, f**k it; I'll sing Bruce.' and I'd sing it that way during shows. But it was really 'Groose.' Mystery solved (laughs)."

Jeff Lynne (January 2013 - Goldmine magazine) "Evil Woman, Mr. Blue Sky, Livin' Thing and Don't Bring Me Down can't fail to brighten your day."

Duncan Jamieson (2013 March - Melodic Rock Fanzine #55) "It's ironic that the track which came closest in that regard  reaching number four, while peaking at three in the UK  was the first to depart from the tried and trusted formula of utilising the band's own three-piece string section. This was Don't Bring Me Down, which, quite aptly, was dedicated to the NASA Skylab space station that re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 11th July, 1979. [...] However, even though Don't Bring Me Down also boasted a very danceable up-tempo beat that appealed to the contemporary club scene, it was rooted much more firmly in the rock vein, as Jeff Lynne, backed by ELO's trademark high-harmony vocal chorus, sang about a party girl who was giving him the runaround. [...] One of the final songs to be worked on during the Discovery sessions was Don't Bring Me Down. However, this boasted an atypical approach to both the conception and execution. 'It's a great big galloping ball of distortion,' Jeff Lynne remarked about the number in 2001, at the time of Discovery being remastered. 'I wrote it at the last minute 'cos I felt there weren't enough loud ones on the album. This was just what I was after.' 'I once read an interview with Jeff in a music magazine where he described how Don't Bring Me Down came about, and it was quite interesting, because his recollection was the complete opposite of mine," [Reinhold] Mack now says. 'He was trying to figure out what to do next and I said, Jeff, let's just do something fun. Let's do away with the strings, let's do away with the choirs and let's just boogie out for a night. He said, Yeah, okay, maybe you're right. Bev, do you want to play something? Bev said, Nah, I don't want to jam around for no reason, so I then figured I'd make a tape loop of two bars of drums.' This was extracted from another of the album's tracks, On The Run, slowed down and then sped up slightly, as per Lynne's request. 'Jeff asked me, What next?' Mack continues, 'so I said, Well, I guess you'll have to go out there and count the bars to provide us with some kind of structure. That's what he did, and then once again he asked me, What next? At that point, I could tell he liked the idea of experimenting and was following my lead. Let's put down some piano, I suggested. Twelve-bar blues. There were two grand piano parts playing the same thing, then three, after which I suggested the obvious: bass and guitar. 'Gradually, Jeff started getting into it, and, as there was a plan for ELO to start a concert tour in Australia, the song was originally titled Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce. This was meant to be a joke, referring to how many Australian guys are called Bruce, but we couldn't leave it like that, so eventually we replaced it with Gruss, based on the Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott  greet God. Gruss, not Bruce, is what you hear in the song immediately following the title line. A bit like Freddie Mercury joking around at the end of Queen's [1985 single] One Vision, singing fried chicken. 'Still, according to Jeff, he came into the studio with the idea of doing something different, putting together the tape loop and then adding the various elements. That fits his personality; it's always him who conceives everything, sings everything, produces everything and so forth.' Certainly, it was Lynne who overdubbed all of the guitars on Don't Bring Me Down, including an Ovation acoustic 12-string and a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop running through a Marshall amp. 'I had three or four microphones set up in the studio at various distances  very close, medium, far, very far  and, depending on the song, used them in combination to get the required sound,' Mack says. Once Lynne had figured out the precise structure of Don't Bring Me Down, he then added the vocals. As usual, this marked the first time that anyone  including his engineer and fellow musicians  actually heard the lyrics and vocal melody. 'That was the big problem,' Mack reiterates. 'We never had a clue what was going on or where things would be going. When everything was overdubbed to the hilt and the tracks were completely full, then Jeff would say, OK, I'll have a shot at it, and start singing. That's just the way he worked. There weren't any guide vocals. In fact, the backing vocals would almost always be recorded before the lead vocal, which was the last thing to go on. On Don't Bring Me Down, Jeff and Kelly did the backing vocals around the same mic.' [...] 'As it happens, he completed his vocal for Don't Bring Me Down very quickly. The whole track was done that way and that's probably why it is so great. It reflects fun, and although at the start it was a little tedious to get it going, once it did get going it was just like boogie night. It was done bang-bang-bang, really, really quick, and that includes the mix. It was taken as a monitor mix, putting two compressors for left and right, and it was pretty much done in a day. That's because it's a very simple, straightforward track, especially compared to the complexity that Jeff usually went for, and clearly people liked it.'"

Richard Buskin (September 2013 - Sound On Sound Classic Tracks) "Then we're back to serious business. Don't Bring Me Down is one of the most pulverising rock & roll records ever made, that earth-shattering robo-boogie beat accompanied on the backscreen by those booty-shaking burlesque figures from the video, and 20,000 people shout 'Gruß!!!' in unison. (Note to jokers: it's the German word for 'greeting', and was never 'Bruce!'.) It's the song that gave ZZ Top an entire career (or at least, a second one), and The Dandy Warhols their basis for Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth. When ELO are on this sort of majestic form, it's as if the mothership from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind has stopped teasing Dreyfuss, Truffaut & co that little five-note soundcheck, and blasted Devil Mountain into gravel with an intergalactic rock & roll spectacular. I never want it to end."

Simon Price (2014 September 16 - The Quietus article entitled The Jesus Of Uncool Has Risen: ELO Live) "About Bruce [on Don't Bring Me Down]? It was supposed to be Grooss! And we had a German engineer who thought it was Gruß, which means 'greetings'. I left it in and didn't think anything more of it, but then we went on tour and everyone was singing 'Bruce'. So I joined in and sang Bruce and I've sung it ever since. It reminds me of Monty Python. 'Grooss' was just to fill a hole in the song. It's easier to join in than to explain that it's not Bruce, it's actually spelled g-r-o-o-s-s... so I sing 'Bruce' instead of explaining."

Jeff Lynne (October 15 2014 - The Guardian ) "Born Dec. 30, 1947, in Birmingham, England, Lynne scored many hits throughout the 1970s with the Electric Light Orchestra, including Can't Get It Out Of My Head, Livin' Thing and Don't Bring Me Down."

Unknown (April 23, 2015 - Westside Today ) "Single No. 3 [from Discovery ], Dont Bring Me Downa great big galloping ball of distortion which Jeff wrote at the last minute because he felt there werent enough loud ones on the album was in fact a completely solo recording. Built on a drum loop from a previous track on the album, On The Run, written on piano with guitars and bass added later, it also became the first ELO song thus far released not to feature any strings. According to Jeff, it contained not only the drum loop, but also eight grand pianos, a cement mixer, and two crates of Newcastle Brown Ale and that got the ball rolling. (Every hit songwriter should have them all, perhaps.) His use of the word grooosss in the chorus was the subject of some speculation, but was in fact made up on the spot because it fitted. Thinking it was actually Bruce, fans would sing it at live performances until Jeff eventually adopted it himself at later shows. The final sound to be heard in the closing seconds was a fire door at Musicland Studios being shut, apparently intended as a suitable ending to the track because it was the last song on the album, as if to signify that they had finished and were leaving the building. Ironically, if a future collaboration the following year is to be excluded, Dont Bring Me Down also became their highest-charting 45 on both sides of the Atlantic. It reached No. 3 in Britain, No. 4 in America, and No. 1 in Canada. In some ways the song was the end of ELO. Using strings on the recordings had increasingly become something of a time-consuming chore. The Discovery sessions were the groups first in which the string players were not used in the studio. The fact that Dont Bring Me Down turned out to be far and away their most successful single possibly had some bearing on Jeffs decision that strings, which were becoming surplus to requirements, would be scaled down on future recordings. [...] Instead [of a tour] they made videos for each song, in which Mik Kaminski, Hugh McDowell, and Melvyn Gale all appeared, and all of them miming on keyboards for Dont Bring Me Down."

John Van der Kiste (August 2015 - Jeff Lynne: Electric Light Orchestra - Before and After ) "I'll tell you how [Don't Bring Me Down] was. You're absolutely right to think it was robotic, because that was one of the world's first drum machines. I cut two bars of drumming, from another song, mixed it up to two tracks, laid that onto the 24-track, and played along to that. I played everything except... I can't think what I didn't play on it, actually. Nearly everything. I played bass, and piano, and guitar. But it was like a 'robotic' drum machine. I whacked a shitload of compression on it, so it was almost like it's going backwards. You know, 'boosh, boom-boom, boosh, boom-boom...' And that's what made the sound. It was instantly good. It only took, I dunno, a day to make that."

Jeff Lynne (2015 November 2 - The Quietus ) "Heads-down rocker Aint It A Drag has a whiff of Dont Bring Me Down."

Graeme Thomson (2015 November 7 - Daily Mail ) "Mack, who'd engineer several ELO albums, maintained that Lynne's love life was chronicled in some of ELO's biggest hits, including Don't Bring Me Down: 'They were usually aimed at his [second] wife, Sandi.'"

Mark Blake (November 2015 - Classic Rock magazine) "Don't Bring Me Down (1979): This one I made up in the studio, and I play all the instruments. It starts with a drum loop from another song that I sped up. I then compressed the shit out of it. When I was singing it, there was gap in the vocals, so I just shouted out 'groose.' It was a word that came to my head. The engineer said that it meant 'greetings' in German, which I thought was lovely and decided to leave in. When I went onstage with it everyone would sing 'Bruce.' I just ended up singing 'Bruce' as well. This was the first song I did without any strings. It was exciting to work with them when we started, but [after] six albums, I got fed up with them. There was also trouble with the unions. They'd stop playing before the end of the song if the end of the hour was approaching. Now they aren't so rude since there are samplers and everything."

Jeff Lynne (January 21, 2016 - Rolling Stone article entitled: 'ELO's Jeff Lynne: My Life in 15 Songs') "The band's music is very sentimental to me. Don't Bring Me Down was one blasted at Camp Cory when I attended there in the 1970s"

Thom Jennings (December 24, 2016 - The Daily News ) "Ever since Dont Bring Me Down was a hit for the Electric Light Orchestra in 1979, people have been wondering what word Jeff Lynne says after singing the chorus 'dont let me down' [sic]. Some listeners think hes singing 'Bruce' in a reference to Bruce Springsteen while others have come up with their own theories. To find the answer, you only have to look at the lyrics printed on the inner sleeve of the album from which the song came. After the words 'dont bring me down', Lynne says the word 'grroosss'. On a 2001 episode of VH1 Storytellers , Lynne explained that the word is based on a similar-sounding German word. He then said that so many fans began to sing the word 'Bruce' at their concerts that he started doing it too. Peaking at No. 4 in the summer of 1979, Dont Bring Me Down became the biggest American hit in ELOs long career."

Bradford Brady & John Maron (May 9, 2018 - Bristol Herald Courier ) "The biggest hit from [ Discovery ] though Dont Bring Me Down was decidedly rock fuelled. [...] The only rock inspired single and another closing track (noticing a pattern here?) from the disco influenced 1979 album Discovery . The highest ELO single to chart in the US at #4, reaching #3 in the UK top 10. During the recording Lynne decided to fill a gap in the vocals with a made-up word 'grooss', which one of the engineers informed him sounded like the German word for 'greetings'. However, when the band sang it live, the audience misheard it as 'Bruce' which Lynne eventually took on board and sang as a replacement."

Andrew Gutteridge (September 5, 2018 - Counteract website) "If I ever have thought, 'Okay, we haven't got a strong enough single,' I have tried to bang one out at the end of the session, and that's how Don't Bring Me Down came about. I played everything on Don't Bring Me Down; I love playing all the tracks myself. I think I put six grand pianos on it, which is ridiculous because six aren't going to sound any bigger really, unless you detune them slightly. It was a fun song to make and it was definitely a strange sound for me. I suppose I had felt insecure about the singles on Discovery because I was always a singles guy myself. But I guess they must have worked, because otherwise those people wouldn't have come to Wembley. We played all the hits, or most of them..."

Jeff Lynne (November 2018 - Wembley Or Bust book) This sample is the door slamming noise, with enhancement on the door slam so it can be heard clearly. At the song's end is a sound that many have had difficulty identifying over the years. It is confirmed to be a fire door that is slammed at Musicland studios in Germany. It is uncertain why the slamming door part was included, but it likely was intended just as an amusing ending to the song and/or the Discovery album, as if the band were finished playing and were immediately leaving the building. Don't Bring Me Down (Edited 18 Greatest Hits LP Version)

This version, found on the Australian 18 Greatest Hits LP from 1984, differs from the original Discovery version in that it replaces the last "down" of the sixth verse with the very last "down" of the song, cutting everything in-between. Don't Bring Me Down (Time Tour)

On the UK and European performances of Don't Bring Me Down during the Time tour, the band with the exception of Bev's drumming, paused at the end of the fifth verse for an audience participation section. This was not done during the USA performances of during the tour and the song was played straight through. "[The Time tour USA] set list differs to UK - Strange Magic played instead of Wild West Hero, and Do Ya performed complete, whilst Don't Bring Me Down performed minus audience participation."

Rob Caiger (1992 - Face The Music fanzine #13) E.L.O. Megamix (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

This is a mix of portions of the songs (in order) Don't Bring Me Down [0:00 to 1:05], Sweet Talkin' Woman' [1:05 to 2:29], Livin' Thing [2:29 to 3:34], Calling America [3:34 to 4:39], So Serious [4:39 to 5:24], Shine A Little Love [5:24 to 6:35], Twilight [6:35 to 7:44], Turn To Stone [7:44 to 8:39], and Hold On Tight [8:39 to 10:08]. Although this song saw official release, it is clearly not made from the original master tapes. Sound quality even on the official release is inferior. Remixed by Dakeyne of Disco Mix Club (UK). "The [Calling America] 12-inch (TA 7317) did however contain probably the strangest ELO 'release' of all: the ELO Megamix. Mixed by one Dakeyne of Disco Mix Club (UK), its [sic] nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds contain snippets from nine of ELO's old songs, segueued together to the beat of a drum machine. A desecration? Well, Jeff apparently wasn't too happy about it (his permission wasn't asked), bit certainly was different. The combination of the Megamix and the scarcity of the 12-inch due to the dispute and the poor sales of the limited number of copies that did get out makes this one of ELO's most sought-after items, and it can easily fetch £10, with even the 7-inch rated at £5. GTTP [sic] was of course the last ever official ELO release...."

Andrew Whiteside (1994 - Face The Music fanzine #17) "The [Getting To The Point] 12-inch features an ELO Mega Mix [sic] by Dakeyne of Disco Mix Club UK. After the single is in the shops, it turns out that Jeff did not give his permission!"

Rob Caiger (1994 - Face The Music fanzine #17) "...the 12 inch [single of Getting To The Point] with the ELO Megamix was only available in the UK which meant that all foreign collectors were hunting after the few records sold in Great Britain."

Patrik Guttenbacher, Marc Haines, & Alexander von Petersdorff (1996 Unexpected Messages ) "Matter Of Fact and the Megamix [sic] will not be on the remastered edition [of Balance Of Power ]."

Rob Caiger (March 22, 2005 - Showdown mailing list) "The ELO Megamix was unapproved."

Rob Caiger (April 3, 2008 - Showdown mailing list) "[If ELO Megamix is ever released, it will be released] as is, I would think - if it does - it should never have come out in the first place."

Rob Caiger (April 6, 2008 - Showdown mailing list) Don't Bring Me Down (Heartbeat 86, March 15 1986)

"ELO played a barnstorming set, including Telephone Line, Do Ya, Calling America, Hold On Tight and, in a furious finalé, Dont Bring Me Down, a tough act for The Moody Blues to follow."

Paul Cole (March 12, 2016 - Birmingham Mail ) Don't Bring Me Down (Balance Of Power Tour)

E.L.O. Mega-Hits (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

This curious remix was officially released on a Spanish issue promo only 12" single, thought to be part of the Spanish only The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra promotion (which was a trimmed down Spanish version of the USA-issued Afterglow set). It begins with some strange, spacey keyboards with an unknown sample of a man saying, "I mean, come on! Give me a break!". The keyboards are mixed with the opening violin from Livin' Thing. The mix contains a mix of the ELO songs Livin' Thing [0:11 to 1:35], Don't Bring Me Down [1:25 to 1:55], Sweet Talkin' Woman [1:55 to 2:16], I'm Alive [2:16 to 3:04], Shine A Little Love [3:04 to 3:54], and Roll Over Beethoven [3:54 to 4:58] and in that order. Of interest is that the songs in the mix are sometimes edited and rearranged, with the most noteable section being sections from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that are used to end the song Roll Over Beethoven are used to begin the sample in this mix, then the normal guitar that starts the song and the first verse, then a section of the chorus, then the Beethoven's Fifth Symphony ending is repeated to end the mix. The same mix is on both sides of the 12" single. The remix is by two Spanish DJs, calling themselves "Rebeldes Sin Pausa" (which translates to English as "Rebels Without Pause"). ELO Remix - 40 Principales (featuring a Don't Bring Me Down sample)

This curious remix was officially released on a Spanish issue promo only 7" single, thought to be part of the Spanish only The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra promotion (which was a trimmed down Spanish version of the USA-issued Afterglow set). It contains a mix of the ELO songs Don't Bring Me Down [0:00 to 0:42], I'm Alive [0:42 to 1:27], Do Ya [1:27 to 2:26], Hold On Tight [2:26 to 3:25], and Rock 'n' Roll Is King [3:25 to 4:51] and in that order. Don't Bring Me Down (VH1 Storytellers, April 20, 2001)

Don't Bring Me Down (Los Angeles, May 2001)

The "Don't bring me down, no no no no no no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo" line of verse 5 at this performance used a very different arrangement with a rock-a-billy beat and different guitar. The "Don't bring me down, no no no no no no no no no no, ooh-ee-hoo" line of verse 5 at this performance used a very different arrangement with a rock-a-billy beat and different guitar. Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix - Los Angeles, May 2001)

Don't Bring Me Down (Solo Version)

This is a new recording of Don't Bring Me Down by Jeff Lynne alone. It's unclear when it was actually recorded, but it first appeared in the 2008 film, College Road Trip as an edit. It then appeared in full on the 2011 Xbox and Playstation NHL 12 videogame. And finally it got full audio release on the 2012 Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra compilation. This is a new recording ofby Jeff Lynne alone. It's unclear when it was actually recorded, but it first appeared in the 2008 film,as an edit. It then appeared in full on the 2011 Xbox and Playstationvideogame. And finally it got full audio release on the 2012compilation. " Mr. Blue Sky [sic] features re-imaginings of the title track, Evil Woman, Livin' Thing, Don't BringMe Down, and 10538 Overture."

Author Unknown (August 2, 2012 - Something Else! website review) " Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra is a powerful testament to Lynne's enduring artistry and his singular desire to get things right once and for all. Featuring such classics as Evil Woman, Don't Bring Me Down, Livin' Thing and Mr. Blue Sky, the result is, in effect, a kind of showdown between Jeff Lynne today and his extremely illustrious past, and thanks to improved technology and recording artistry, Lynne somehow comes out on top again."

Scott Hopkins (September 25, 2012 - Pop Bitez website) "Lynne played every instrument on Long Wave, which he also does on Mr. Blue Sky  The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra , a fascinating, deeply entertaining reworking of his own hits. Evil Woman, Don't Bring Me Down, Telephone Line, Livin' Thing  they're all here and more. Lynne doesn't maim his ELO legacy so much as puts a fresh spin on some of the greatest pop-rock songs to flood the radio waves during the '70s and early '80s."

Joe Bosso (October 3, 2012 - Musicradar website) "Lynne worked six days a week [on ] perfecting songs including Do Ya, Evil Woman, Strange Magic, and Don't Bring Me Down. He did this at home, mostly on his own. 'I just love playing all the instruments and going back and thinking fucking hell, I did all that.'"

Katie Bain (October 9, 2012 - L.A. Weekly ) " Mr. Blue Sky The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra is a powerful testament to Lynne's enduring artistry and his singular desire to get things right once and for all. Featuring such classics as Evil Woman, Don't Bring Me Down, Livin' Thing and Mr. Blue Sky, the result is, in effect, a kind of showdown between Jeff Lynne today and his extremely illustrious past, and thanks to improved technology and recording artistry, Lynne somehow comes out on top again."

Author Unknown (October 2012 - Rock Music Report website) "[Don't Bring Me Down is] basically a snare that's just crushed to death by a UREI [1176]. That's as flat as I could have it without it blowing up or becoming a fuzz box. That's how I did it in the first place, and I did the same method on the new version."

Jeff Lynne (November 1, 2012 - Mix online magazine) "I actually recorded [Don't Bring Me Down] as 'Bruce' this time [on the new recording]."

Jeff Lynne (2012 November 30 - The Adam Carolla Show ) Don't Bring Me Down (5.1 Mix Solo Version)

This version of Don't Bring Me Down is the 5.1 mix of the new Jeff Lynne solo version as found on the College Road Trip DVD. It is only available as a 5.1 mix on this DVD, although the 5.1 separation is not remarkable. Don't Bring Me Down (Bungalow Palace - March 2011)

Jeff has stated in several interviews that he recorded eight songs with Richard for the Live From Bungalow Palace performances. However, only six were included on the TV broadcast and Don't Bring Me Down is ver