As a starting point, history by now should have leaked out what these lyrics really mean, so, it's confusing that there's any need for speculation.
Nevertheless, it's fun so let's go. My approach is to first take a step back and get overview of Jeff's patterns, assuming he wrote these lyrics, something I'd love confirmation of. IMO, ELO's lyrics do not seem to especially be mind binders, discussing, e.g., "complex" topics like the weather and chicks. Rather, ELO's secret sauce is their polyphonic ear candy added in later on. That in mind, we can eliminate lyric interpretations that require anything resembling mental gymnastics and focus on very simple ideas.
"The city streets are empty now"
This probably indicates that the bars have closed. The dancing is over. The city and people are officially sleeping. It indirectly references that beforehand the singer was "on fire" earlier, entertaining at least one person and having a blast. This theory is supported by the later lyrics.
"Yes I'm turnin' to stone
'Cos you ain't coming home,"
Ok, now we see he was with a chick. She's gone home. And, now he has nothing to do but stare at the walls, remembering she shadows he could see while dancing. She had given him something to be animated about. Perhaps conversation too, but he was impressing her, feeling great about himself. Now, at 3am, there's no one to impress. No one to talk with. Nobody there to see how amazing he can be.
So, the singer has turned to stone, in a sense. He's not dancing anymore (turned to stone is the opposite of dancing). And, he has got nothing to say or do since there's nobody there to hear or see it, at least that he cares about enough to bother "being on" in a Robin Williams sense of how on fire he was.
The word, blue, in the last line references Mr. Blue Sky (song about nice weather vs. cloudy), and signifies when Jeff is on fire in the crowd singing or dancing with his beautiful date, or otherwise feeling great and not alone but surrounded by wonderful friends and an audience so large and incomprehensible that only a few other humans besides Jeff have ever experienced.
As a starting point, history by now should have leaked out what these lyrics really mean, so, it's confusing that there's any need for speculation.
Nevertheless, it's fun so let's go. My approach is to first take a step back and get overview of Jeff's patterns, assuming he wrote these lyrics, something I'd love confirmation of. IMO, ELO's lyrics do not seem to especially be mind binders, discussing, e.g., "complex" topics like the weather and chicks. Rather, ELO's secret sauce is their polyphonic ear candy added in later on. That in mind, we can eliminate lyric interpretations that require anything resembling mental gymnastics and focus on very simple ideas.
"The city streets are empty now"
This probably indicates that the bars have closed. The dancing is over. The city and people are officially sleeping. It indirectly references that beforehand the singer was "on fire" earlier, entertaining at least one person and having a blast. This theory is supported by the later lyrics.
"Yes I'm turnin' to stone 'Cos you ain't coming home,"
Ok, now we see he was with a chick. She's gone home. And, now he has nothing to do but stare at the walls, remembering she shadows he could see while dancing. She had given him something to be animated about. Perhaps conversation too, but he was impressing her, feeling great about himself. Now, at 3am, there's no one to impress. No one to talk with. Nobody there to see how amazing he can be.
So, the singer has turned to stone, in a sense. He's not dancing anymore (turned to stone is the opposite of dancing). And, he has got nothing to say or do since there's nobody there to hear or see it, at least that he cares about enough to bother "being on" in a Robin Williams sense of how on fire he was.
The word, blue, in the last line references Mr. Blue Sky (song about nice weather vs. cloudy), and signifies when Jeff is on fire in the crowd singing or dancing with his beautiful date, or otherwise feeling great and not alone but surrounded by wonderful friends and an audience so large and incomprehensible that only a few other humans besides Jeff have ever experienced.
[Edit: added an introduction]