"Brontosaurus" is a song by rock group The Move

The Move

The Move, from Birmingham, England, were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s. They scored nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any success in the United States....

.

Released as a single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 early in 1970, it was also included on the band's Looking On

Looking On

Looking On is the third album by The Move, released in the UK in December 1970. The LP is their first to feature Jeff Lynne, their first containing entirely original compositions, and the first on the Fly label, its catalogue number being FLY 1...

album later that year. With its aggressive guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 riff

RIFF

The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

 and growling vocal, the song marked a major shift in sound compared to their previous, more pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

-orientated single "Curly", presumably Roy Wood's attempt to put some distance between the band and former vocalist Carl Wayne

Carl Wayne

Carl Wayne was a British singer and actor. He is best remembered as the lead vocalist of Birmingham rock group The Move during the 1960s.-Early days:...

 whose MOR leanings caused disagreements with the other members. This song was the first Move recording made after former Idle Race

Idle Race

The Idle Race were a British rock group from Birmingham in the late 1960s and early 1970s who had a cult following but never enjoyed mass commercial success...

 front man Jeff Lynne

Jeff Lynne

Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob...

 had joined, and he contributed guitar and piano. Lynne had been recruited into the group with the main aim of developing the embryonic Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra were a British rock group from Birmingham who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones...

, though they were contractually required to keep The Move (with their proven track record as a hit singles outfit) functioning in order to help finance the new project.

When The Move promoted it on Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

 on BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 TV, Wood - who had never appeared on television as the group's front man before - appeared in the face make-up which he would later develop two years later as the leader of Wizzard

Wizzard

Wizzard was a Birmingham-based band formed by Roy Wood, former member of The Move and co-founder of Electric Light Orchestra. The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits states, "Wizzard was Roy Wood just as much as Wings were Paul McCartney."-Biography:...

.

Tim Curry

Tim Curry

Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....

 covered the track in 1978 on his album "Read My Lips."

Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...

 covered the track in 1996. They had also covered a later song by The Move, "California Man", in 1978, which included an instrumental break based on the "Brontosaurus" riff.

The Supernaturals

The Supernaturals

The Supernaturals were a five-piece guitar based pop band from Glasgow, Scotland. Fronted by singer-songwriter James McColl, they signed to Parlophone in 1996, and had a string of singles which were taken from their three albums and four EPs. Other members included Mark Guthrie, Derek McManus and...

covered the song in 1997 as a B-side to "The Day Before Yesterday's Man".