Tuesday, May 18, 2021

"Do Ya"

In some ways, Electric Light Orchestra formed out of a band called the Move.  For Christmas last year, I got a compilation album of the Move (Magnetic Waves of Sound: The Best of the Move), and I've been listening to it fairly regularly.  One of the tracks is an earlier recording of "Do Ya" (the Move version includes a question mark:  "Do Ya?"), and I recently noticed a small difference between the two.  In the Move version, two of the lines are "They come a-runnin' just to get a look / Just to feel, to touch her long black veil."  In the ELO version, one word has been changed so that these lines are "They come a-runnin' just to get a look / Just to feel, to touch her long black hair."  This probably isn't a very significant difference, but I thought I'd note it all the same.

For what it's worth, Jeff Lynne comments on the two versions of the song in this interview (starting at ~23:28).