Australian singles chart:
Don’t Bring Me Down entered the Kent Music Report on 20 August 1979 and peaked at #6. It was #38 on the Top 100 of 1979.
Album:
The song is on Discovery which entered the Kent Music Report album chart on 25 June 1979. It reached #1 on 23 July 1979 and remained there for a total of 6 weeks.
Songwriter:
Jeff Lynne
Producer:
Jeff Lynne
Record label of Australian release:
Jet
Songfacts:
Don’t Bring Me Down was the first ELO song that did not use strings. After recording it, they fired their string section, leaving four members in the band.
ELO leader Jeff Lynne wrote this song late in the sessions for the Discovery album. He came up with the track by looping the drums from a song he recorded earlier in the session, then coming up with more music on the piano. The words came last, as Lynne put together some lyrics about a girl who thinks she’s too good for the guy she’s with.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/electric-light-orchestra/dont-bring-me-down
Misheard lyric:
A common mondegreen in Don’t Bring Me Down is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts “Bruce!” Lynne has explained a number of times that he is singing a made-up word Groos, which some have suggested sounds like the German expression “Gruß”, meaning “greeting.” Lynne has explained that originally he did not realise the meaning of the syllable, and he just used it as a temporary placekeeper to fill a gap in the lyrics, but upon learning the German meaning he decided to leave it in. After the song’s release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as “Bruce” that Lynne actually began to sing the word as “Bruce” for fun at live shows.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Bring_Me_Down
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