"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" is a song recorded by the

Electric Light Orchestra The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970 by songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood with drummer Bev Bevan. Their music is characterised by a fusion of pop, classical a ...

(ELO).

Release

It was taken from the 1973 album ''

On the Third Day ''On the Third Day'' is the third studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), and the first to be recorded without input from Roy Wood. It was released in the United States in November 1973 by United Artists Records, and in the United Kingd ...

''. In the UK, the single version had a slightly different mix from the album original featuring a descending string crescendo and was edited in length.

Marc Bolan Marc Bolan ( ; born Mark Feld; 30 September 1947 – 16 September 1977) was an English guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a pioneer of the glam rock movement in the early 1970s with his band T. Rex. Bolan was posthumously inducted int ...

plays twin lead guitar on the track alongside

Jeff Lynne Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder of the rock music, rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which was formed in 1970. As a songwriter, h ...

and features on a number of takes from the April 1973 ELO session, such as "Dreaming of 4000". "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" also featured on ''

The ELO EP Below is the complete Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) discography including imports, videos, and hit singles. ELO's back catalogue is unusual since their compilation albums far outweigh their studio output in number, owing to the large number of ...

'' in 1978. In the UK the B-side "Oh No Not Susan" found its way on to various

DJs A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

' playlists at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, unaware that the song's lyrics contained profanity. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

"Daybreaker", the single's flip side, proved more popular and the song was relegated as a b-side in 1976 on "

Livin' Thing "Livin' Thing" is a song written by Jeff Lynne and performed by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). It appears on ELO's 1976 album ''A New World Record'' and was also released as a single. Patti Quatro sang uncredited vocals, particularly the "hig ...

". In 1974 ''

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', was an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' compared "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" to the style of

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

of ELO's predecessor

The Move The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...

. …"just take their he Movebrand of rock 'n roll, add an extra dash of heavy and there you have it—this new ELO disk." Early working titles for the song were "Auntie" and "My Woman", both of which have found their way onto various compilations. The UK single version of ''Ma-Ma-Ma Belle'' contains a unique rising string interlude following the second chorus that is not heard on the album version. This short segment is actually lifted from the song ''Dreaming Of 4000'' where it is extracted from that song, flipped backwards, a flange effect is added and it's inserted into ''Ma-Ma-Ma Belle'''s UK single mix.

B-sides

"Daybreaker"

"Daybreaker" is an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

song on the album ''On the Third Day''. It was the first of two instrumentals on the album. A prominent feature of its arrangement was

Richard Tandy Richard Tandy (born 26 March 1948) is an English musician. He is best known as the keyboardist in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra ("ELO"). His palette of keyboards (including Minimoog, Clavinet, Mellotron, and piano) was an important in ...

playing

arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

s on a

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

synthesizer. The song was the B-side to the single, "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle", in the US; however the B-side received more airplay than the A-side, thus "Daybreaker" charted instead. Despite its US hit status, the song is rarely included on any of the band's extensive compilation albums.

"Oh No Not Susan"

"Oh No Not Susan" is a song written by Lynne taken from the album ''On the Third Day'' recorded in 1973. Despite the song's lyrics containing profanity, it received much airplay at the time being the UK B-side to "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle". On the album's original lyric sheet the offensive word was omitted.

Bev Bevan Beverley Bevan (born 25 November 1944) is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). After the end of ELO in 1986, he founded ELO Part II. Bevan also was drumm ...

remarked:

"On n The Third Daythere is a song called Oh No, Not Susan on which Jeff sings: 'Oh, no not me, that's all she says... her money and her place they just don't mean a fucking thing...' The BBC played it many times, despite their policy towards such lyrics. It just goes to show that if you keep quiet about it and don't make maximum fuss to get publicity there isn't anyone listening closely to words on the radio."

Chart positions

;"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" ;"Daybreaker"

Jeff Lynne version

re-recorded the song in his own home studio. It was released in a compilation album with other re-recorded ELO songs, under the ELO name, as an iTunes Store exclusive bonus track.

References

External links

In-depth Song Analysis
at the Jeff Lynne Song Database (jefflynnesongs.com) {{authority control 1973 songs 1974 singles Electric Light Orchestra songs British hard rock songs Song recordings produced by Jeff Lynne Songs written by Jeff Lynne United Artists Records singles Warner Records singles