Electric Light Orchestra
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50 free Electric Light Orchestra trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Electric Light Orchestra set out to put strings at the centre of a rock band and ended up with one of the biggest catalogues of the 1970s and early 1980s. Jeff Lynne's songs still turn up in films, adverts and stadium playlists, which is why so many people know the tunes better than the story behind them. This quiz covers the whole story: how the band started and who passed through it, the albums and singles and how they were made, the stage shows and artwork, the film and TV moments, and Lynne's later work as a producer and bandmate to some very famous friends. It ends with the modern revival as Jeff Lynne's ELO. Most questions are pitched for casual fans who know the radio hits, with a harder run for people who own the albums. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through or print it for a music round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which ELO song is the opening track of Awesome Mix Vol. 2, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack?
Mr. Blue Sky
Mr. Blue Sky first appeared in 1977 as the last part of Concerto for a Rainy Day, a four-song suite about the weather. The suite fills side three of the double album Out of the Blue.
Q 02ELO's debut album got which accidental US title after a label caller failed to reach the band's contact?
No Answer
No Answer was only the caller's note about the failed phone call, which the US label then took for the album's name. In Britain the record kept its real title, The Electric Light Orchestra.
Q 03ELO's 1974 concept album Eldorado, about a daydreamer's fantasy worlds, has a cover still from which classic film?
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz still shows Dorothy's ruby slippers with the Wicked Witch's hands reaching for them. Eldorado was also the first ELO album made with a hired orchestra.
Q 04ELO's Roll Over Beethoven, which opens with a blast of the Fifth Symphony, was first recorded by which rock pioneer?
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry wrote and released the song in 1956. ELO stretched it into an eight-minute epic that threads passages of Beethoven's symphony through his riffs.
Q 05ELO wrote half the songs for which 1980 roller-skating movie musical starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly?
Xanadu
Xanadu disappointed at the box office, yet its title song, sung by Newton-John with the band, became ELO's only UK number-one single.
Q 06ELO leader Jeff Lynne took the alias Otis in which 1980s supergroup of fictional half-brothers, alongside Bob Dylan?
Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys formed in Los Angeles in 1988, and every member took a Wilbury pseudonym, with Dylan billed as Lucky.
Q 07ELO's Jeff Lynne co-produced Cloud Nine, a 1987 comeback album featuring Got My Mind Set on You, for which star?
George Harrison
George Harrison had gone five years without a solo album when he asked Lynne to produce with him. The partnership soon grew into a band of five famous friends.
Q 08Which 1979 ELO hit, the band's biggest US single, was their first song recorded without any strings?
Don't Bring Me Down
Don't Bring Me Down runs on a pounding drum loop instead and reached number four in America. ELO dedicated it to Skylab, the space station that fell to Earth that summer.
Q 09ELO formed in 1970 in which English city, also the birthplace of Black Sabbath and Duran Duran?
Birmingham
Birmingham stayed home turf: ELO played the Heart Beat 86 charity concert there in March 1986, only months before the original band quietly broke up.
Q 10Which rock legend praised ELO's Showdown on American radio in 1974 and dubbed the band the Son of Beatles?
John Lennon
John Lennon made the remark in a radio interview, adding that he had expected Showdown to be a number one.
Q 11ELO's 1981 hit Hold On Tight repeats its first verse in which other language?
French
French aside, Americans came to know the single as the theme of the National Coffee Association's Coffee Achievers TV adverts of 1983 and 1984.
Q 12ELO's 1970s line-up was unusual for a rock band because it carried a violinist and two players of which instrument?
Cello
Cello players Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale and violinist Mik Kaminski were all dismissed in January 1980, when Jeff Lynne wanted a more modern sound.
Q 13On ELO's 1978 world tour, the band played inside a hugely expensive stage set with lasers, built to look like what?
A spaceship
A spaceship that opened up to reveal the band, the set was so costly and slow to rig that it appeared at only about every other show; the rest used a normal stage.
Q 21ELO is the favourite band of Elton Pope, the fan at the centre of a 2006 episode of which British sci-fi series?
Doctor Who
Doctor Who's Love & Monsters plays three ELO hits as Elton and his friends, a club of ordinary Londoners, try to track down the Tenth Doctor.
Q 22ELO's Last Train to London was reworked into Be with You, a 2002 UK hit for which girl group?
Atomic Kitten
Atomic Kitten's single sampled the song's hook, so Jeff Lynne picked up a songwriting credit on a girl-group record that reached number two in Britain.
Q 23ELO's The Diary of Horace Wimp follows its hero through the week but skips which day?
Saturday
Saturday is left out because, as Jeff Lynne explained, that is when the football match is played. The Beatlesque single made the UK top ten in 1979.
Q 14ELO co-founder Roy Wood quit during work on the second album to form which glam rock band, known for a Christmas hit?
Wizzard
Wizzard took two more ELO players along, and its 1973 single I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday became an annual fixture on British radio.
Q 15Jeff Lynne's ELO played the main stage on the closing Sunday in June 2016 at which English music festival?
Glastonbury
Glastonbury put the band on its Pyramid Stage on 26 June 2016, one stop on a 19-date European tour by the revived group.
Q 16Jeff Lynne relaunched ELO in September 2014 with a sold-out BBC Radio 2 concert at which outdoor London venue?
Hyde Park
Hyde Park's 50,000 tickets went in 15 minutes. The show was billed as Jeff Lynne's ELO to set it apart from offshoot bands trading on the old name.
Q 17Which ballad from ELO's 1976 album A New World Record opens with a Moog copy of an American ringing tone?
Telephone Line
Telephone Line got its intro when the band rang a US number they knew nobody would pick up, listened, then tuned the Moog's oscillators to the same notes.
Q 18Which 1975 ELO hit did Jeff Lynne write in minutes because Face the Music still lacked a strong single?
Evil Woman
Evil Woman was the quickest thing Lynne said he had ever written, yet it became the band's first worldwide hit.
Q 19ELO's Jeff Lynne co-wrote Free Fallin' and produced Full Moon Fever with which American rocker?
Tom Petty
Tom Petty and Lynne wrote and recorded Free Fallin' in two days, making it the first song finished for Full Moon Fever. It reached number seven in America.
Q 20ELO's Livin' Thing plays over the final scene and end credits of which 1997 Paul Thomas Anderson film?
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights nearly lost the song: Jeff Lynne refused the rights at first, then changed his mind after watching a screening with the director.
Q 24ELO's 1977 double album helped to popularise which robotic-voice effect, used heavily across its songs?
Vocoder
Vocoder voices crop up through the album. One sings the intro of Big Wheels, and another ends Mr. Blue Sky by asking the listener to turn the record over.
Q 25Which 1979 ELO album, home to Shine a Little Love and Last Train to London, was the band's first UK number one?
Discovery
Discovery entered the UK chart at the top and stayed for five weeks. Its back cover shows comedian Brad Garrett, in one of his earliest jobs, as a palace guard drawing a scimitar.
Q 26Which 1983 ELO album carried a mock warning notice on its British back cover?
Secret Messages
Secret Messages warned of backward messages on its sleeve, Jeff Lynne's tongue-in-cheek reply to claims of hidden Satanic content, and the record is laced with deliberately backmasked phrases.
Q 27Jeff Lynne wrote ELO's 1977 double album in three and a half weeks at a rented chalet in which country?
Switzerland
Switzerland gave him two weeks of mist and not a single idea; then the sun came out over the Alps and the songs arrived in a rush.
Q 28From 1975's Face the Music onward, ELO made most of its albums at Musicland Studios in which German city?
Munich
Munich's Musicland was set up by disco producer Giorgio Moroder in the basement of a tower block, and Deep Purple recommended it to the band.
Q 29Which founding ELO member drummed for Black Sabbath on the 1983 Born Again tour?
Bev Bevan
Bev Bevan stepped in for Bill Ward, and a headline set at the 1983 Reading Festival was only his second gig with the heavy metal band.
Q 30Which manager, the father of Sharon Osbourne, guided ELO's career and founded the band's label Jet Records?
Don Arden
Don Arden's aggressive, sometimes illegal business tactics earned him nicknames such as Mr Big and the Al Capone of Pop.