TheUglylucy4's video: Sweet Talkin Woman

"Sweet Talkin' Woman" was written by Jeff Lynne and is the third track off of ELO's 1977 release...Out of the Blue. The LP is the seventh studio album by the band. It is a double album and considered the most commercially successful records in the group's history...selling about 10 million copies worldwide. Lynne wrote the entire album in three and a half weeks while hidden away in his rented chalet in the Swiss Alps. Out of the Blue peaked at No. 4 both in the US and the UK. The cover art on the album shows a shuttle entering a space station. The number JTLA 823 L2 which is featured on the shuttle arriving at the space station is the original catalogue number for the album. "Sweet Talkin' Woman" had the original title of "Dead End Street", but it was changed during recording, perhaps to avoid confusion with a 1966 hit of the same title by The Kinks. Some words that survived from that version can be heard in the opening of the third verse, "I've been livin' on a dead end street". "Sweet Talkin' Woman" tells the story of a woman that constantly eludes our author and that pace is set from the ballads opening lines..."I was searchin' (searchin') on a one-way street,I was hopin' (hopin') for a chance to meet,I was waitin' for the operator on the line". But who is this woman? To me, that woman is the operator he is trying to meet. After all, what he finds sweet about this woman is her talking. She is the only he's specifically spoken to from the very beginning. The lines..."She's gone so long, What can I do, Where could she be, Don't know what I'm gonna do,I gotta get back to you"...perhaps relate to his call being disconnected and left holding the phone with nobody on the other end.The only chance to meet her again would be to call her back. This would be in line with the "communication break down all around" he is witnessing. Operator or not, our author keeps his desperation in view while he looks for her..."You gotta slow down (slow down), sweet talkin' woman,You got me runnin', you got me searchin',Hold on (hold on), sweet talkin' lover,It's so sad if that's the way it's over". Losing a chance to meet a woman due to a disconnected call would be "sad if that's the way it's over". Maybe that's the "insufficient data coming through". He's hoping beyond hope that some serendipity will help him find her beyond the "one way street". You'd have to believe that all hope is lost and he will not meet this woman when he tells us that he is now on a "dead end street". ". Either way, "Sweet Talkin' Woman" is a wonderful ballad about a man that thinks about a woman all the time. He keeps asking about her but she's constantly out of reach. A song about a guy who can never get in touch for some reason...a song about the one that got away.