Hear Electric Light Orchestra’s Upbeat New Song ‘One Step at a Time’

Lush textures of clickety-clackety keyboards, slide guitar and disco-ish drums open up “One Step at a Time,” a new Electric Light Orchestra single that will appear on the group’s upcoming LP Alone in the Universe. When frontman Jeff Lynne, who recorded nearly every instrument on the record, sings, though, it sounds like classic ELO, as he pleads for understanding before a relationship totally breaks down.

When it comes out on November 13th, Alone in the Universe will be the first Electric Light Orchestra LP since 2001’s Zoom and it finds Lynne flying solo mostly. “I did everything except the shaker and the tambourine, which my engineer Steve [Jay] played,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this month. “It was just a two-man exercise, with him manning all the lifeboats and me doing all the singing and playing.”

So far, Lynne has released two songs from the album, the reggae-tinged “When the Night Comes” and the piano ballad “When I Was a Boy.” He has also put out a quasi-autobiographical video for the latter song, which depicts him as a young man looking up at the group’s trademark spaceship logo.