Music Monday: Livin’ Thing

I’ve always enjoyed ELO, and consider Jeff Lynne to be a talented songwriter and producer. He is usually a pretty straight-up writer, and doesn’t tend to go in for a lot of jazzy chords or alternate bass notes. His skill is largely in writing very melodic, hummable songs, though he does throw harmonic curve balls from time to time. “Livin’ Thing” is one song that contains a couple of them.

Lyrically, I have no idea what the song is really about. Like most of Jeff’s songs, I’m sure it has some kind of romantic message, but what is all this “rolling and diving” and “slipping and sliding”? And what exactly is this “livin’ thing” that is terrible to lose? Feel free to offer suggestions in the comments–especially if you’ve heard or read Jeff Lynne discuss it.

Musically, there are some very interesting things going on. First you have that violin solo at the beginning and periodically throughout that seems a little out-of-place. I’ve attempted a transcription of the introduction for any intrepid violinists out there who want to try it. Remember, though, I’m not trained in transcription, so take these notes and listen to the record:

Then the verse messes around with the key, flipping from C-major to Ab-major and back to C-major. And then the chorus has that funny little G+ (G-augmented) chord. There are at least two ways you can play that G+. This is how Jeff Lynne plays it:

But you can also play it like this if it’s easier:

(The “X”s mean “don’t play these strings.”)

Here’s a lyric/chord sheet for the whole song:

And here’s the promotional film (i.e., the music video, though technically there wasn’t such a thing in 1976):

What do you think the song’s about?