Electric Light Orchestra – 10538 Overture

General Comment"When we eventually came to record the vocals, Jeff was looking for a title to portray a man with a number instead of a name. After staring into the space for a while, we noticed the serial number on the modules of the recording console, 1053. With a bit of juggling, it ended up as 10538... and as its the first song with our new idea... 10538 Overture... YES!" (Roy Wood, 1990)

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  @Lunavox

General CommentThis is a very beautiful song with very deep lyrics:

Did you see your friend crying from his eyes today
Did you see him run through the streets and far away
Aah
Did you see him run, did you see him fall
Did his life flash by at the bedroom door

*It's referring to a person whose friend is a non-conformist in a society of conformity, he almost conformed (did you see him run, did you see him fall) but this person made a come back, and wasn't lost to conformity or society.*

When "someone has been found on the rocks down in the bay," this non-conformist has "died" or conformed to society...
And his life means more than it did before because non-conformists are considered radicals, and there aren't that many to begin with.. Now there are even fewer left.

People are talking in disgust as Number 10538 had tried to escape the normalness of life, and trying to escape the safeness of it all.

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  @iam10538
  0

  I never really interpreted this song as anything about society. In my mind it is about a man who has been rejected by a woman (his wife, girlfriend?) and ends up committing suicide. The person singing is asking her how she can be so callous and uncaring to have let him go off and kill himself, asking her if she has any remorse about it, or even if she thinks of him as anything other than a statistic.
  
  I always thought 10538 was the number assigned to his corpse after his body is recovered. Haunting.

  Flag New Era Orchestraon September 09, 2010  

General CommentThis is a beautiful, haunting song about a man who has committed murder, told from the perspective of his friend who obviously had not idea he was capable of that kind of a crime.
Though to me "10538" has always reminded me in a way of "Les Miserables"- the play where the main character (a criminal) is hunted by an unrelenting police officer who refuses to call him by his name- and calls him his prison number. There's probably no connection, but it did ring a bell.

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  @MelodyPowers

General Comment"I suspect it was a prison break with 10538 being his number" - Joe Elliot (Def Leppard)

To me its knowing a friend that committed a murder. "was it 10538" a bit of forshadowing of his soon to be prison number.

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  @Firewalker

General CommentI think that this song is about a man trying to escape 'the system' or the constant grind of everyday life and commiting suicide, and the number 10538 symbolizing the fact that the man was little more than a number to everyone else.
"Does his life mean more than it did before"
After the man commited suicide the news came on and identified the man, as if suddenly he is more important, even though noone stopped him when he commited suicide, and noone made his life easier for him.

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  @Asla

General CommentVery Sgt. Pepperish at the end...

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  @LeftyTownshend

General CommentReferring to the central figure only by digits: it lends a dystopian feel to this peculiarly nebulous composition. Even by today's standards: the overdriven, upper-midrange screech of the guitar drone feels unearthly.

Not sure whether the song was recorded after THX 1138 hit the theaters. Maybe slightly before.

From hearing their first two LPs: who'd have predicted ELO would become a consistent source of symphonic pop confections? WIth a desperate isn't-it-Beatlesque sheen dripping from every groove.

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  @foreverdrone