Can't Get It Out of My Head is a song by Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra were a British rock group from Birmingham who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones...

.

First released on the band's fourth album, Eldorado, in July 1974, the song is the second track on the album and follows "Eldorado Overture

Eldorado Overture

"Eldorado Overture" is the opening track on Electric Light Orchestra's 1974 concept album Eldorado.It was a new experience for Jeff Lynne to use a full orchestra and choir for the band's songs. The opening starts with haunting sounds provided by Richard Tandy on the synthesizer...

." The song was released in November of that same year as a single.

The song became the band's first top ten single in the US, reaching #9, and helped boost public awareness of the band in America; however, back in the UK the single and LP failed to chart. In 1978 the song was included on a four-track ELO EP

ELO EP

The ELO EP was the final 1978 release from Electric Light Orchestra. It was a seven-inch extended play album played at 33 revolutions per minute and it was released in the UK and Ireland only to promote the three-LP box set Three Light Years. "Can't Get It Out of My Head" was the lead-off track and...

 (UK release) reaching #34 on the UK charts. The song has appeared on many ELO compilation albums.

Chart positions

Chart (1974)	Peak Position
Austrailian ARIA Singles Chart	59
Dutch Top 40 Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...	19
French SNEP Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... Singles Chart	5
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	9
U.S. Cash Box Top 100 Singles	14
U.S. Record World Record World Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both... Singles	23

Other appearances

• Telekinesis (band)
  Telekinesis (band)
  Telekinesis is Michael Benjamin Lerner, an indie rocker based out of Seattle who is currently signed to Merge Records. While on tour Lerner is joined by Cody Votolato from Portland, OR and Jason Narducy from Evanston, IL, as of August 2010...
  
   covered this song on the 2010 American Laundromat Records release, Sing Me to Sleep - Indie Lullabies.
• The song was recently covered by the hard rock
  Hard rock
  Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
  
   supergroup Velvet Revolver
  Velvet Revolver
  Velvet Revolver is an American hard rock supergroup consisting of former Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum, alongside Dave Kushner formerly of punk band Wasted Youth. Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland was Velvet Revolver's lead singer from their formation until...
  
   on their 2007 album Libertad.
• In 2006, the popular Fox teenage drama, The OC, featured a special cover version of the song in an episode, as well as commissioning the indie artist John Paul White to cover the track for Music From The OC: Mix 6 "Covering Our Tracks".
• A live cover version by Fountains of Wayne
  Fountains of Wayne
  Fountains of Wayne is an American power pop band that formed in New York City in 1996. The band consists of members Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter and Brian Young.-Early years:...
  
   appeared as a b-side on their 1997 single "Sink to the Bottom
  Sink to the Bottom
  "Sink to the Bottom" was the second single by Fountains of Wayne, from their debut album also titled Fountains of Wayne. It was released in 1997 and charted in the UK at #42 on May 10, 1997...
  
  " and later on their 2005 album Out Of State Plates
  Out of State Plates
  Out-of-State Plates is a double compilation album by Fountains of Wayne. It was released on June 28, 2005. This is a two-disc compilation of non-album tracks and previously unreleased recordings spanning the group's entire career....
  
  .
• In 2006 Jonathan Kossin covered the song.
• In the '70s, a "Sacred Mushroom Edition" cut of Kenneth Anger's experimental film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
  Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
  Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome is a short 38 minute film by Kenneth Anger, filmed in 1954. Anger created two other versions of this film in 1966 and the late 1970s. According to Anger, the film takes the name "pleasure dome" from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's atmospheric poem Kubla Khan...
  
   circulated that used the ELO song as it's score instead of the original Glagolitic Mass
  Glagolitic Mass
  The Glagolitic Mass is a composition for soloists , double chorus, organ and orchestra by Leoš Janáček. The work was completed on 15 October 1926...
  
  by Czech composer Leoš Janáček
  Leoš Janácek
  Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
  
  

External links

• In-depth Song Analysis at the Jeff Lynne Song Database (jefflynnesongs.com)