The Objective Beauty of the Time Goatee
A critical analysis by Big C of Jeff Lynne Appreciation Posts Inc.™️©️®️
[lil disclaimer: none of this makes sense enjoy]
jeff lynne is known for being a very calculated man, he’s the definition of a crowd pleaser, he has a meticulously guarded personality built on privacy, secrecy, and reservedness.
but with the Time Goatee we see the man let loose for once. try new things. let that guard down. around this time we saw the first (public) appearance of a leather jacket on jeff. this is huge.
some people might attribute the Time Goatee to a regrettable 80s phase (“we all went through one!”) with no lasting significance. but me? i don’t buy that shit. lets open this wound
a Goatee seems like such a drastic choice to make, considering jeff’s facial hair in the past was to deliberately hide behind (im guessing here), it then begs the question: how did the Time Goatee come about?
lets set the scene. the exact timeline of the birth and death of the Time Goatee is blurry so bear with me here. it’s 1981, you’re jeff lynne. standing in front of your bathroom mirror. you haven’t been seen without sunglasses in public in so long you don’t even bother taking them off at home anymore. you bring the razor to your face, hoping just to trim your perfectly manicured beard so it doesn’t grow out to 1973 Caveman Jeff proportions
the darkness of the glasses skews your vision and it’s too late before you realise just how much you really shaved off. this is how i imagine the birth of the Time Goatee.
the Time Goatee, for me, is one small (but necessary) part of a bigger picture. let’s take a look at the name itself. TIME goatee. time referring to the phenomenal album of this period. time is a concept album about the future. concurrently, jeff seemed to be venturing into somewhat futuristic style choices. lets take a look. here we see the debut of the leather jacket:
another shot from this video shows jeff committing unspeakable violence.
is the Time Goatee COUPLED with the leather jacket a bad influence? who is the real perpetrator of this crime? how many yellow zebras did jeff murder for that shirt? the mystery deepens.
people often wonder: how is Time such a bomb ass album that bops and slaps when jeff was contractually obligated to make it? when his heart wasn’t fully in it? when he probably would have been perfectly happy settling down with his wife and kids for a while? where did he find the inspiration for an entire concept album and end up writing, producing and performing one of the greatest 80s art rock synth pop cult classics of all time?
this photo in particular speaks volumes of the power of the Time Goatee. look at that thing. it looks like someone smudged the fucking photo
another curious photo. has jeff realised his mistake miracle in this photo? is it an affectionate caress of the goatee? or is he intentionally covering it up?
believe it or not this is not the first goatee jeff has welcomed onto his face.
wrongly believed to be from the Time Goatee era, i would date this photo at 1973-1974, considering jeff’s hair and youthfulness, bev’s hair and youthfulness (as he was pushing 37 in 1981 come on), and the absence of sunglasses (which we know jeff decided he wouldn’t be caught dead not wearing around 1979)
but, as quickly as the time goatee burnt our eyes entered our lives, it vanished. jeff’s moustache grew back. the hair at the sides of his mouth grew back and reconnected the chin hair (now defunct goatee) to the moustache and the full beard was reborn.
and while we have no photographic evidence of it, i’m sure it was a slow, painstaking process. jeff’s moustache grew. and in a way, so did jeff.
