14 November 1987
Jeff Lynne must have had some seriously scandalous kompromat on The Beatles and Tom Petty. Why else would they have continually entrusted production of their ’80s and ’90s records to him, when he consistently made them sound so awful? His dreary multi-tracked voice, his drearier country-rock soundscapes: never mind “Paul is dead”, the real conspiracy theory is that Lynne had some sort of Dr Eugene Landy-style controlling influence over any old rocker in his L.A. neighbourhood, including Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison on the Traveling Wilburys albums.
Anyway, here’s George throwing his hat into the ’80s-solo-Beatle-number-one ring. I didn’t realise that ‘Got My Mind Set On You’ was actually a cover version of an early ’60s US record. (The original 1962 release by James Ray is a charming soul-tijuana-big-band confection.) At the time, my small child brain didn’t really know much about George Harrison either. As to why it got to number one, a large driver of that must be the video (below) with George in some sort of grisly funhouse of animate objects, which was shown plenty of times on Saturday morning kids’ TV. I must admit, as a child I fell for the ol’ switcheroo trick with the dancer. (There was another video for this track, where George and band play from inside a ’50s jukebox. Warning: Jeff Lynne appears in that video.)
‘Got My Mind Set On You’ is a catchy song and George delivers it playfully, but the Jeff Lynne factor really drags it down. George, if you’re being held prisoner by someone forcing you to make badly-produced records against your will, do a backflip from your chair in the video as a signal, okay?
Irish Number Ones 