Nobody commented on this? You guys suck. While the lyrics to this are crap, it is a good song overall. It's sang real well, and the music is pretty good. You gotta love at least SOME of this shit

This song is very beautiful and its composed so that every other ELO song I hear brings me back to this, like it can't get out of my head! hahaha...this band rocks!!! I can't stop listening to them...three weeks straight of these songs...awesome....

Song seems to be about this girl he can't can't out of his head, like she's just swallowed whole his entire world and he can't move and only thinks about her...because of this he can't make himself a better person or better the world as some past fictional/non fictional characters seem to have done, as he states "They don't envy me"...

this song makes me cry! my dad LOVED elo!! :'(

its "She came" not "Chicane" Chicane isnt even a word, is it?

dude shut the fuck up charlie-the-man or w.e the hell ur username is maybe if you had half a brain maybe you'd be able to appreciate these beautiful lyrics. So shut ur mouth you obviously dont appreciate real music so why don't you just go back and listen to green day or w.e fake/shitty band you listen to!

This song is from the Eldorado album, with much reference to the Wizard of Oz (eg, picture on the cover was of the Ruby Slippers).

This song in particular has musical quotes from Over the Rainbow (here the strings at 2:10)

Hence, the meaning of this song to me is about paradise (Oz) and the grip it has on our mind (Can't Get It Out...) . Even tho the lyrics don't specifically reference W of Oz, I can't get it our of my head that this song is about Oz.

Chicane is a word, GhostmanX. It means to resort to tricks.

Awesome song. Definitely one of ELO's best slow songs. I love the part "Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me". Awesome! The Eldorado album in general rocks too. The piano, voice, voice, all add to the great song factor.

One of the greatest melodies in all of songdom. Brilliant. The imagery that comes to mind is simply amazing.

Chicane is a word, but I don't think it's used in the sense of trickery here. Rather, I think it refers to the crest of a wave.

Yes, it's "chicane"; I copied it off of the lyric sheet. :-)

In this sense, it means "a tight turn or curve"; a chicane is a type of curve on a racetrack.

My suspicion is that he used the word because it rhymed.

Floydian, I posted that well over 2 years ago. People change with time. Check the dates before you mouth off.

"I saw the ocean's daughter,
Walking on a wave's chicane"

I believe this is a reference to Greek and Roman mythology.

Aphrodite(venus), the goddess of love and beauty, was "born from the foam of the waves"
She may be the "ocean's daughter"

Jeff Lynne could use Aphrodite to mean a beuatiful, perfect girl.

it means life to me.
peace and love to all

For many of us this song is special.

Especially if you've ever been infatuated with someone in your life and experienced the terrible desperation of "can't to get it out of my head". The first line, "Midnight, on the water", describes the setting, place and mood when love can easily be inflicted. The "ocean's daughter" is Venus the goddess of love who was born from the waves. She is not the object of his infatuation but she is the cause of love occurring between people similar to cupid's role in causing people to fall in love. It's interesting how Jeff deliberately uses the word "chicane" instead of "she came", because he's not referring to the girl that he is in love with but rather this particular situation of love that makes one helpless. Chicane in this context means trickery, and the goddess of love, "walking on the wave", uses her powers and one is tricked and falls into this helpless condition. In the next line, the goddess had called his name, a kind of random act and he fell choicelessly in love. Now he can't get it out of his head. Jeff could have used the word "her" instead of "it", but he uses the word "it" because again he is making a deliberate distinction between this song being about a particular girl and particular situation of love that is desperate. This song is about love’s situation.

This love is dire. It is so engrossing he can't think or do anything else. He can't move, he's breaking down, his old world the one he is familiar and comfortable with is no more. He's is struggling to get it out of his head and in to escape this miserable love condition, he is searching for her silver light. This means he's looking for a way to appease the goddess so she may release him from his love trap.

Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me. This line is quite poetic and the pace it is shouted adds dimension to the song. The song is wonderful in the beginning and middle but anticipation keeps building and I always look forward to this line. All these men are great and fearless heroes. Time and time again they faced every kind of danger and countless times they've risked their lives and concurred powerful adversaries. They walk this earth without fear. Except even they are powerless when it comes to love. Fight a dragon, no problem but face love's desperation willingly, that requires a real hero. And for that reason, they don't envy him.

Listen to Livin’ Thing & Turn to stone which are also great song with similar meaning.

junkkillit, that was a fantastic analysis! I thought he meant chicane to mean the crest of the wave. He really does sing chicane too. If you read his lips when he sings it its quite clear.
Beautiful song.

This song is amazing in terms of mood and setting. Jeff has said (vh1 storytellers) It's about a dream of falling in love. the subject has a dull 'bank job in the city' - the popular heroes (robin hood, etc) don't envy the guy with the bank job. this dream keeps him going ("in dreams the world keeps going round and round").

When you walk along the shore line, the water meets the beach, not in a straight line, but in curves... a chicane.

I think the song is the love of the Ocean. When I am near the Ocean and hear the waves craching to shore it feels my soul. Being out on a boat at midnight and falling in love. I can be sitting at my keyboard and think of the Sea then I can hear the waves crashing. And "I can't get it out of my head..."