Thanx guys for your replies (now why doesn't anyone take my "prog lyrics" quiz??)
Now that I think of it, although Genesis were my first
recognised trip into the wonderful world of prog, I was into it before through Mister Lynne and His Most Effecicaious Orchestra Run Off Electricity, though I did not realise at the time this was prog of any sort (indeed, like Dotoar says, in many ways I was unaware what prog was, or even that it existed --- weren't we happier back then, when we could just listen to music because we LIKED it, and not because it was a genre we had/needed to be into?) --- I just loved "Out of the blue" and played the full "Concerto for a rainy day" over and over, leter going back to earlier efforts like "Face the music" and "El Dorado" (still one of my alltime favourite ELO albums, and a prog classic if ever there was one!), but the whole thing of OotB hooked me from the start, from the colourful gatefold sleeve with the weird spaceship on the front to the concerto and right up to the closer (and hit single) "Wild West Hero" --- what a way to finish such a sublime album!
Sad to see they're no longer with us now: I thought "Zoom" was not bad, but in fairness their last real release for me, as ELO, was "Secret messages", and like "Time" before it, was to me a fitting swan song.