| Electric Light Orchestra - Mr. Blue Sky [Album Version] | Details | |||
 "There's one track [on Out Of The Blue] Mr. Blue Sky that I just can't get out of my head. It's a kickback to those acid days of Penny Lane and is a happy ending song to side three's 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' concept."David Brown (October 28, 1977 - Out Of The Blue review from unknown magazine or newspaper) "The final part of the [rainy day] concerto, Mr. Blue Sky is perhaps the ultimate track on the four sides." "The side [of Out Of The Blue] unfortunately concludes with a ditty called Mr. Blue Sky, an excruciatingly insipid piece that would sound more appropriate as a television sit-com theme." "A happy song-- we all feel happier when the sun shines after a storm. The choir are very good at the end of this track singing in the style of the 'Swingle Sisters'." "Two more fluff wads wrap [side three of Out Of The Blue] up [including] Mr. Blue Sky, a keyboard hopper that will give countless listeners a chance to use the word 'peppy.'" "The next ELO single is to be Mr. Blue Sky take from the double LP Out Of The Blue and released next Friday (20). [...] Teh first 200,000 copies of the new single will be pressed in blue vinyl and issued in special bags." "I'm still a sucker for gimmicks-- so the blue vinyl helped me to like this record more than I would have. But once you get past the novelty, the single just doesn't match up to expectations. As usual, excellent production (a bit Beatle-ish) but than that I'm not daft about it." "The Jet/CBS Affiliation is already in effect, and the newest ELO single is all set to soar. It's Mr. Blue Sky from the triple platinum, Out Of The Blue. Jeff Lynee [sic] says that it took three weeks to write the songs for the two-record Out Of The Blue album. And one of those weeks was devoted entirely to Mr. Blue Sky. It's quite a musical trip, and Top-40 listeners will get new things out of it each time they take it. It's sure to spark fresh demand for the Out Of The Blue album." "I don't mind all the lifts [from Beatles' songs], because I've grown to love ELO's style of making records. If Lennon was still playing music, I could imagine him coming up with a record as complex and gratifying as ELO's latest single, Mr. Blue Sky. Although the single doesn't look to be the hit it should be, we don't have to run any benefits for ELO. They will undoubtedly be around for a while." "'Concerto,' consisting of four separate songs, sweeps by as smoothly and rapturously as Mr. Blue Sky or Turn To Stone, the [Out Of The Blue] album's two hit singles." "A four track single featuring Mr. Blue Sky, Across The Border, Telephone Line and Don't Bring Me Down will also be out at the same time [as the Four Light Years box set]." "Besides focussing on the trials and tribulations of various love affairs, Jeff has also covered in his lyrics that Great British topic of conversation - the weather. Generally, it's either been throwing it down with rain or 'the sun beats down on the main street'. These two extremes have come to be the tell-tale for the mood of the lyrics as well. The sunshine has meant couples happy together in Jeff's songs, whilst the rain on the window pane has been the tears in the eyes of the lovers who are miles apart. You only have to look at the lyrics to Mr Blue Sky, Standin' In The Rain, Rain Is Falling, Confusion, So Fine and Sweet Is The Night to see this. They're simple, yet effective. [...] Jeff has used a popular literary device on a few occasions. This is called personification, and it involves the placing of ideas or objects with human form and character. Mr Blue Sky is probably the most popular example of this method, and Jeff counterbalances it in the same song by the inclusion of Mr Night." "I rented this little chalet in Switzerland in the mountains above... just beyond Lake Geneva. Rented this gear from a little shop in the village, like a little music shop. Y'know, with a Revox tape recorder and an electric piano. I had me guitar there. And just sit there and try and write. And two weeks, I came up with nothing. And I only had four weeks to write this double album. And I was sort of thinking, 'Bloody, hell, maybe I can't come up with anything.' And the weather had been really bad and... And, uh, the one day I got up and it was fantastic. All the sun was brilliant shining. All the mountains were lit up, this mist had gone away. It was gorgeous and I come up with Mr. Blue Sky." "With advance worldwide orders of four million, Out of the Blue quickly peaked at No.4 in the UK, surprisingly never making No.1. No further singles were released from the LP until January, when public pressure ensured that Mr. Blue Sky (JET UP 36342) was the new release, in all it's five minutes and five seconds of glory (at least in the UK!). It has an interesting, rather than a particularly attractive sleeve, made up of a collage of the pencil portraits superimposed over a blue sky(!). The back of the sleeve rather disconcertingly featured another T-shirt advert. Label design was again yellow Jet. The B-side was One Summer Dream from Face The Music, but for some unaccountable reason it was a remix, lacking Jeff's vocal introduction and the girls backing vocals, in addition to being a minute or so shorter than the album version. No explanation has ever been given for why there should be two versions. There was also a blue vinyl version of Blue Sky [sic] released, but otherwise similar in every other way to the ordinary single, and for which you can expect to pay 4.00 for, as opposed to 2.50 for a regular 7-inch. Perhaps because it was the second single from the LP, Mr. Blue Sky only reached a disappointing No.6, staying in the charts for 11 weeks. One can't help feeling that had it been the first single from Out Of The Blue, both it and the LP would have been No.1." "[Summer And Lightning] does however, set the scene for the climactic realization of the concept, with the storm's (and the side's!) end in the shape of ELO's most famous song, Mr. Blue Sky. Jeff Lynne has gone on record as saying that his one remaining ambition in music is to write an all-time classic. Whilst his desire to always improve is admirable, this is one ambition he has already fulfilled. As the rain dies away, a radio announcer informs us that 'Today's forecast is for Blue Skies' [Editor's Note: the line is actually 'Todays's forcast calls for Blue Skies'], symbolically heralding the brand new day and the chance for a fresh start, after the cathartic purifying rainstorm. A repetitive piano note builds up a sense of anticipation that is given full release by Bev's simple but immensely effective drum burst. The lyrics read like a pastiche of Penny Lane-- 'Everybody's in a play/And don't you know, it's a beautiful new day', and the verses even contain out-of-breath vocal effects, mirroring the breathtaking qualities of the song. The chorus comes as a revelation, even by ELO standards, and the interplay between the lead and backing vocals has yet to be bettered. Not content to follow a standard verse - chorus - verse - chorus format however, Jeff then adds a fine melodic guitar solo, and continues to pile on the pressure with the aggressively buoyant - 'Hey you with the pretty face' - section, which takes us into chorus No.2, which if anything, is an improvement on the first, thanks to the addition of the - 'Hey there Mr. Blue' - segment. This unfortunately, leads into perhaps the song's only weak spot, the Vocodered - 'Mr. Blue Sky"-, which sounded great in 1977 but in 1990 severely places the song in a bygone era. This minor quibble aside (who wants perfection anyway?). The last verse sees 'Mr. Night/Creepin' over', but we aren't to worry because 'I'11 remember you this way'. After the final chorus, the song quite literally goes into the stratosphere with a choral section that defies description, taking the track onto what any other songwriter would deem a resptable point at which to close the song. Jeff Lynne, fortunately, isn't any other songwriter. and chooses to propel the song ever onward and upward via a dramatic combination of bass and drum, joined en route by the choir and orchestra who all merge into one glorious climactic fusion, but even here, the song refuses to lay down and die. The strings play a lushly romantic score, going up and down the scales before Richard's single piano note adds a touch of finality, only to have the vocoder breathe the final Amen. But what does it say? Many believe that it says simply. 'Mr. Blue Sky'. Others think it says 'Please Turn Over', as of course it closes the side. Mr. Blue Sky goes so far over the top that you wonder if there's anywhere left to go, and anything that follows it is bound to sound a little dull." "As with Three Light Years, an EP was originally scheduled to promote the Four Light Years set, and it was even advertised in the press. It comprised of four tracks, namely Don't Bring Me Down, Telephone Line, Mr. Blue Sky and Across The Border. Sleeve artwork was designed (eventually used practically unaltered for the Here Is The News/Ticket To The Moon 7-inch) and it was even give a catalogue number (Jet ELO EP2) before being unaccountably withdrawn. I don't know if any copies leaked out, but if so, the owner could name their price." "ELO; Or to be precise, Mr. Blue Sky which saw Jeff Lynne writing a five minute pop symphony about what happens when it's a nice day. You couldn't help wondering whether it was really necessary for a grown man to sing 'Hey there, Mr. Blue/We're so pleased to be with you.'" "The most difficult song [during the Out Of The Blue recording sessions] was Mr. Blue Sky for which Jeff needed one week to get only the bass line as he wanted it to be." "When I wrote this song, it was inspired by the fact that I'd been in this little cuckoo-clock house in Switzerland for two weeks trying to write Out of the Blue, when suddenly the sun came out and everything looked beautiful." "I rented this little, uh, chalet in Switzerland in... in the mountains, above, uh, just beyond Lake Geneva. Rented this gear from a little shop in the village, like a little music shop, y'know, with a Revox tape recorder and a electric piano. I had me guitar there. And just sit there and try and write. And, for two weeks I came up with nothing. And I only had four weeks to write this double album. And I was sort of thinking, 'Bloody hell, maybe I can't come up with anything.' And, the weather had been really bad and, uh... The one day I got up and it was fantastic. All the... all the sun was brilliant shining, all the mountains were lit up, this mist had gone away and... It was gorgeous and I came up with Mr. Blue Sky." "But I do believe ELO's strange magic may be brewing once again: Not only does a recent VW ad feature the band's 1977 hit, Mr. Blue Sky, but shortly after Christmas, the same song surfaced in a trailer for Adaptation - a slightly odd choice, since Nicolas Cage plays a rather jittery, 'Mr. Partly Cloudy'-type character in the film. The song has also become a staple on my local radio station. 'It's one of those tunes that keeps you sitting in your car after you've reached your destination,' sighed one DJ after it ended. I now own the CD. Rock band Nerf Herder (the band who wrote the theme song to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has covered Mr. Blue Sky at concerts." "Things are looking up for Mr. Blue Sky. The 1977 ELO hit had faded from view over the years, overshadowed by more enduring Jeff Lynne standards like Don't Bring Me Down. But that all changed when the song showed up in recent TV commercials for the new Volkswagen Beetle convertible (for which Lynne completely rerecorded the tune) and for the film Adaptation. And now Scottish indie band the Delgados have cooked up a killer cover of the track as a B side on their latest single. Perhaps the once-reviled ELO are headed for a critical reevaluation. 'We like to find songs that people really loved when they were younger, before they got too focused on what's cool or not cool' says Arnold Advertising's Alan Pafenbach, who oversaw the VW spot. 'I think this is one of those great songs. It really is a great piece of music. Sometimes it's better not to be so cool'. But why is 'sky' suddenly everywhere all at once? Mere coincidence, apparently. Asked about the VW ad, Delgados singer Emma Pollock pleads ignorance: 'Oh are they doing that over there? That's great. I hope they (air the Mr. Blue Sky commercial) in Britain. Maybe we can get them to use our version.'" "Mr. Blue Sky (no.6, January 1978) was the hardest... It started as a chord sequence that I pounded for nine hours in a row one day." Here is an excellent editorial from June 1, 2003 by Rob Caiger about the resurgence in popularity of Mr. Blue Sky. Far too much to copy here, here is a link to the original article: CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF MR BLUE SKY. Hopefully it won't go away any time soon as it's a great historical document. "Taking just 3 months to record [the Out Of The Blue album] in 1977, it contains amongst its many highlights, Lynne's definitive ELO song - Mr. Blue Sky." "'Mr. Blue Sky / Please tell us why / You had to hide away for so long?' asks the chorus of an Electric Light Orchestra's 1978 single Mr. Blue Sky. But that mister is hiding no more: After being used in a Volkswagen Beetle ad and the 2002 movie Adaptation, the infectious tune has caught on again, this time being used in the trailer for the upcoming Jim Carrey movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Not bad for a song that barely cracked the American Top 40." "Lots of Gibb Brothers' vocal inflexions and Beatles' arrangement quotes (Penny Lane bell, Pepper [sic] panting, Abbey Road arpeggio guitars). But this fabulous madness creates its own wonder — the bendy guitar solo, funky cello stop-chorus, and the most freakatastic vocoder since Sparky's Magic Piano. Plus the musical ambush on 'way' at 2.51 still thrills. And that's before the Swingle Singers/RKO Tarzan movie /Rachmaninoff symphonic finale gets underway. Kitsch, yet truly exhilarating." "It's the halfway mark in the Evening Mail/ BBC WM search for the Midlands' Anthem. ELO's Mr. Blue Sky has soared into an early lead but Slade's Cum On Feel The Noize is not far behind, closely followed by Dexy's Midnight Runners and UB40." "The polls have closed and the votes have been counted. We can now announce the winner of the Evening Mail/ BBC WM Midlands' Anthem, the song you think best reflects the talents of Midland musicians. And the result is not in doubt. With almost five times as many votes as the second placed tune, the runaway winner is... Mr. Blue Sky by ELO. Beating Dexy's Midnight Runners' Come On Eileen into second place and the mighty Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven into third, Jeff Lynne's 1978 hit is certainly top of the pops with Midland music fans. The song's feelgood lyrics and infectious melody still provide a welcome ray of sunshine 26 years after its release. Songwriter, and former Shard End resident, Jeff Lynne says: 'When I wrote this song, it was inspired by the fact that I'd been in a little cuckoo-clock house in Switzerland for two weeks trying to write the album Out Of The Blue. Suddenly the sun came out and everything looked beautiful.' As the vast number of people voting for Mr. Blue Sky prove, the song now appeals to a whole new audience. In America a re-recorded version was used as the soundtrack for a TV advert for the Volkswagen Beetle convertible and hip Scottish indie band The Delgados covered it for a B-side. BBC WM presenter Ed Doolan, who championed the song as Midlands' Anthem, says: 'I never doubted that Mr. Blue Sky would be the winner. With ELO such a big part of this area, I'm sure that every true Brummie voted for it. I'd like to say a very big 'thank you' to everyone who made their votes count. It really is a feelgood song and makes you feel very proud to be a Midlander. It deserves to be the Midlands' Anthem.' You can hear the complete Midlands' Anthem chart on Jimmy Franks's BBC WM Christmas Day show between 11am and 2pm." "IT'S OFFICIAL - MR. BLUE SKY IS THE MIDLANDS ANTHEM! Mr. Blue Sky has come out on top after a poll was run by BBC Radio WM and local newspaper the Birmingham Mail [sic] to find a Midlands Anthem. With almost five times as many votes from the public as the second placed tune, the runaway winner was Mr. Blue Sky by ELO! The Birmingham Mail will publish the results and a feature on ELO in their issue dated 23 December. Jeff is thrilled and has written a note to the paper and this will also be published soon." "[Regarding Mr. Blue Sky...] When I was a little lad, a record called Sparky's Magic Piano was sometimes played on the radio. That talking piano haunted me and many years later drove me to find out how to do it..." "There's no doubting Jeff Lynne's finest hour. Whether as bedrock of ELO or pretending to be George Martin, his unquestionably majestic stab at the rock uber-anthem, Mr Blue Sky, is unsurpassed. Whereas so much other ELO output boiled down to addled pseudism on a slide guitar, here nothing was superfluous and everything had its place: the thumping oompah piano accompaniment, the nicely finger-clicking pace, the trademark strings bouncing cheerfully along, and atop everything the most preposterously mundane yet somehow instantly infectious wittering about, well, the weather being nice. 'See how the sun shines brightly,' chirped Jeff, 'in the city, on the streets/where once was pity/Mr Blue Sky is living here today!' As with all champion lyrics they looked crap written down, but matched up with call-and-response-style vocalese (to aid those playground singalongs), tons of Beatle-styled orchestral flourishes, and, the crowning glory, a soupcon of Sparky's Magic Piano-esque vocoder dabblings, they become a hymn to the way life is, generally, for the most part, alright. By the time you reached 3 mins 40 secs, with melodramatic sci-fi-sounding chords and a noble strings and piano epilogue, you felt like getting to your feet and saluting!" "I'd be happy to... to have people remember Mr. Blue Sky, yeah, because it's one of my favorites tracks that I ever did. [...] Well, the thing is, I wrote [Mr. Blue Sky] in Switzerland in a chalet in the Jura mountains, trying to write all the songs for Out Of The Blue. So I sat there for two weeks; I hadn't come up with anything. And it had been overcast and misty, y'know. And suddenly, like one day I got up and it was beautiful, all these mountains and the blue sky and... there it was. And that inspired Mr. Blue Sky. I just sat and wrote it as soon as I saw it." "Electric Light Orchestra is one of those ubiquitous bands that could be due for a second glance, a concept that briefly gained some momentum when Mr. Blue Sky all of a sudden became mandatory accompaniment for Charlie Kaufman-scripted films." "From the Beatles-esque Mr. Blue Sky - recently introduced to a younger audience through a Volkswagen commercial - to the early rock influenced Rock And Roll is King, the unabashed commercial appeal of the songs is unmistakable." "In Marks & Spencer, on Kensington High Street on Saturday, shoppers were treated to ELO's Mr. Blue Sky, the music that accompanies the latest M&S womenswear advertisement starring Erin O'Connor, Twiggy, et al." "And, of course, Mr. Blue Sky, twee-pop ten years early, only more overblown, and as a result less ridiculous." "It seems pretty clear that Mr. Blue Sky is ELO's most fully-formed composition, the song most comfortable with its flaunted Beatle-isms. Perhaps due to an increased reliance on vocal layering rather than neo-classical arrangement, perhaps due to lyrics that, for once, sound appropriately kitschy, Mr. Blue Sky nails the aesthetic. " "[Lynne] also used cutting-edge music technology (the vocoder on Mr. Blue Sky) and nutty narratives (The Diary of Horace Wimp) in the service of his string-swathed, multivocaled-tracked pop perfection." "[Mik Kaminski's] all-time favourite track is the classic Mr. Blue Sky, which has recently been the soundtrack of Twiggy's appearance on Marks & Spencer ads. 'The response to that song is always amazing, it still makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but I've run out of fingers and toes to count how many times we've played it,' he laughs." "[Mr. Blue Sky is] the band's best-known and most widely used song (it was in last year's film of The Magic Roundabout) is flimsy, silly, cheesy, superficial, inane - and utterly, irresistibly upbeat." "The [vocoder] words [at the end of Mr. Blue Sky] are 'please turn me over'. This is a reference to when it was a vinyl album, and was an invitation to put on the other side. The vocoder on that album was done on an early moog vocoder. I played the phrase on the piano, and Jeff sang the words. The two signals were then combined and processed together." "The bit at the end is 'please turn me over' because that's what you had to do to play side 4 of the album and the b-side of the single (ex-America which edited the closing section off). There was no difference between the album version and the single - the single master was copied directly from the album master tape." "These days Lynne is best known for Mr. Blue Sky, an effervescent ELO tune from 1978, the 21st-century omnipresence of which - along with 1976's Livin' Thing - have taken centre stage in DJ Sean Rowley's hit Guilty Pleasures radio show. Both songs epitomise the '...but I like it' vibe of this larky romp through the archive." "No [I didn't think Mr. Blue Sky was a classic when I came up with it]. I liked the bouncing beat but I remember sitting in the mastering suite and thinking, 'It's got no dynamics, not enough top, not enough middle, not enough bass.' And fuck, was I ever wrong. It's been played to death ever since. Paul [McCartney] said a nice thing about it the other day. He said, 'That's a song that's found its time, because people love optimism and everything's gloomy at the minute.'" "Mr. Blue Sky was more of a thumping thing, but had intricate little bits in. I actually stole the jazzy licks that pop up a couple of times from The Beach Boys' Heroes And Villains... Carol Kaye again! That was such a nice part that Lou Clark wrote the string parts to coincide with it." "Mr. Blue Sky was a consideration for a summer single a while back but didn't get the support at frontline radio." "In 2001, Brummie Lynne was reportedly planning a takeover of Birmingham City with fellow fans Jasper Carrott and ex-player Trevor Francis. Nothing came of it. Birmingham's players do still run out to Mr. Blue Sky though." "A shakeup of the singles chart will mean downloads of album tracks, older songs and digital-only releases will count toward the top 75 rundown compiled by the Official Charts Company. [...] The move is likely to see older tracks brought to a new generation by TV shows, advertisements and films, or newly released digitally, shoot up the charts. Tests this year showed Mr. Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra in the charts after being featured in Doctor Who..." "One of this [Out Of The Blue] disc's tracks, Mr. Blue Sky, has been used many times in commercials and on movie soundtracks recently... [...] New liner notes explain that the CD's title was inspired by the multiple times the word 'blue' appears in the lyrics. In fact, Mr. Blue Sky was Lynne's joyous reaction to a sunny day, which arrived after far too many rainy Switzerland days in a row. Lynne calls it his greatest ELO achievement. 'It captured all what ELO, my vision of ELO, was all about', he has said. 'All the bits that come in and out, the backing vocals, the cellos sliding, all the little naughty bits, the sound effects, everything is exactly what I imagined ELO to be.' Mr. Blue Sky, along with Standin' in the Rain, Big Wheels, and Summer and Lightning are all part of Concerto for a Rainy Day, a side long (remember, it was released during LP days) concept composition. Believe me, it's a whole lot more fun than watching The Weather Channel." "I rented this little chalet in Switzerland in the mountains just beyond Lake Geneva. I rented this gear from a little shop in a village, a little music shop, with a Revox tape recorder, an electric piano-- I had my guitar there-- and just sit there to try and write. For two weeks, I came up with nothing-- and I only had four weeks to write this double album! And I was sort of thinking, 'Bloody, 'ell, maybe I can't come up with anything.' The weather had been really bad and then one day I got up and it was fantastic, the sun was brilliant and shining, all the mountains were lit up and this mist had gone away. It was gorgeous and I come up with Mr. Blue Sky. [...] [Mr. Blue Sky] captured all what ELO, my vision of ELO, was about. All the bits that came in and out, the backing vocals, the cellos sliding, all the little naughty bits, the sound effects, everything is exactly what I imagined ELO to be." "Rightly described as the definitive Electric Light Orchestra song, Lynne considers Mr. Blue Sky to be his greatest ELO achievement and it continues to appear in film soundtracks and TV ads to this very day." "The [Out Of The Blue album] contained some of the group's best work (the irresistible, supremely shiny pop of Mr. Blue Sky) as well as some of its worst (the vocoder-laced, space-filler Believe Me Now)." "The side C four-song suite 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' (god bless the 70s) even includes the triumphant Mr. Blue Sky, deservedly exhumed in the past few years by the hipster cognoscenti as a perfectly weird slice of gaudy, over-the-top FM-dial pop." "[Out Of The Blue] is very much Jeff Lynne's masterpiece, and contains what the man himself considers to be his finest ever song: the strangely affecting Mr. Blue Sky." "The hits that made this collection [Out Of The Blue] such a success are all here: the exuberant Sweet Talkin' Woman, the jittery Mr. Blue Sky and the Abbey Road- flavored Big Wheels." "These days, of course, everyone hails Mr Blue Sky as his magnum opus, yet its wild construction shows the first sign that Jeff was trying a little too hard." "Last week's 'Wednesday weather song' was The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun, this week it is the Beatle-esque Mr. Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra. Written by E.L.O.'s frontman, Jeff Lynne, for the 1977 album, Out of the Blue," the song is the fourth and last in the 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' suite. Mr. Blue Sky was a hit on both the U.K. and the U.S. charts and has been used on numerous occasions in films, TV series and commercials. More familiar with E.L.O. hits such as Evil Woman, Sweet Talkin' Woman, and Don't Bring Me Down, I must admit being unfamiliar with Mr. Blue Sky before receiving the suggestion from reader, robeekay. What a great suggestion it was -- I'd be hard-pressed to find a bouncier, happier pop song about a beautiful day!" "Taking a vacation to get away and write songs [for Out Of The Blue], the first two weeks provided nothing worthwhile. Scared and doubting himself, Lynne woke up, looked outside at the morning sky and within a few ours wrote the eventual hit Mr. Blue Sky. After that songs flowed like a river Lynne couldn't shut off." "Electric Light Orchestra provides the upbeat Mr. Blue Sky for the retail giant's [Sears] campaign that kicked off in May with an ad for Mother's Day gift ideas. The song, from the 1977 album Out of the Blue, has been used throughout the summer in other sales promotions for Sears. Ad agency Y&R, Chicago, picked the song to be one of several happy tunes for a new Sears campaign dubbed, 'Sears, Where it Begins.' Other tunes include Brendan Benson's What I'm Looking For and The 88's Coming Home. 'We have chosen upbeat pieces that help create a sense of energy and fun in the spots,' says Becky Case, Sears' vice president of advertising. If you think you've heard ELO's Mr. Blue Sky in an ad before, you're right. Volkswagen used it in 2003 to promote the New Beetle convertible. In the ad, a young man's daily grind drags on - until he spots a New Beetle ragtop. The Sears license from Sony BMG to use the song expired this month, so you will no longer hear the song in ads - at least until another marketer wants to brighten up a commercial." "Even today it's hard not to be bowled over by the impact and innovation of Evil Woman, Mr. Blue Sky or Strange Magic, a song whose title perfectly summarized the Lynne mystique." "But during his ELO days, Lynne proved to be the master of studio magic, creating complex and layered tracks that still sound fresh today. That probably explains why ELO songs such as Mr. Blue Sky and Hold On Tight are still used in television commercials to pump up the hip factor of whatever car or soft drink the tune is helping to promote." "Eleven stops out of Nyon on the Nyon-St Cergue train line there is a village called Bassins. Like many of the villages up in the Jura it is pretty. It has fountains galore in the centre with obligatory summer hanging baskets, a church with immaculately kept grounds, a pottery, and old houses, barns, converted and otherwise. What you always find high up in these villages is a great view down the valley and Bassins is no exeption. If you look one way across the fields you get more villages. Look down the hill and you get views over the lake and across to Mont Blanc. On a clear day, these views can be stupendous, in winter, even more so, especially when there is lots of snow on the Alps. Anyway, whatever time of the year it was, the view obviously inspired Jeff Lynne when he stayed in a chalet in Bassins back in the 70s, as he wrote Mr Blue Sky and other songs for the Out of the Blue album here. I did try to discover exactly which chalet it was that he stayed in to take a photo from the same spot. So I sent a few emails off to various places, but I never got an answer. No matter. Even though the song is over 30 years old, when the sun comes out the words still ring true today and when you are up in Bassins (or anywhere in this area to be honest) it is just gorgeous. You can see what he means." "For reasons of longevity Mr. Blue Sky still stands out [as a favourite]. "We've played it so many times, but it goes down a storm every time. I never get bored of it, and will play it for as long as people want to hear it." "Of course, the Beatles had the White Album [sic] and Lynne again followed in their footsteps with the release of Out of the Blue, the finest concept album about weather ever made, including the utterly fantastic Mr Blue Sky." "One of my favorites [of my songs] is Mr. Blue Sky. I felt like that was a proper song. It was well rounded and it was that kind of song where feel good about it. [...] The vocoder, which is what makes the piano talk, is a very odd thing. 'Cause when I was a little lad, I remember hearing it for the first time. I was probably about five years old. It was on a thing called Sparky's Magic Piano. I don't know if anybody here ever heard of it. And it was a single that they used to play on the children's radio program called Children's Favourites and it was invariably on every week. And that piano sound used to haunt me. It was like a piano with asthma. It really was. [Imitates the sound.] I loved it even if played through the chords. It's really strained to get it out. And while I was making Out Of The Blue in Munich in Germany, up the road in Stuttgart, they'd just made a new prototype of the new vocoder which I'd just heard of. The engineer had just told me, they'd just got one finished, we can go pick it up. So we sent our girlfriends [to] go pick it up. They brought it back [and] there was no manual to it. It was a prototype, so we had to work it out. Took us about a day just to get a sound out of it. But the sound it got was [sings 'Mister Blue Sky'], you know the way the piano sings in that song. And I was so thrilled, I've got Sparky's Magic Piano on my record! So I was chuffed to bits about it. That's how that happened anyway. And that's the funky sound you talked about, Sparky's Magic Piano. [...] ...and that's how I wrote Mr. Blue Sky, looking out of the window in Switzerland where I was writing Out Of The Blue. And for just like two weeks it was overcast and drizzling. And one day, it just all opened up, the sky was blue, the sun was shining. And I thought it was such a corny thing to do, I wrote a song called Mr. Blue Sky." "[Mr. Blue Sky] is one of the classic ELO tracks. It's been used worldwide for adverts, films, trailers, and people keep telling me from America it's being used again for this, that and the other. It's one of those songs that will be around as long as things are happening. [Regarding the original rhythm track], again, which if you can imagine, it's just the chords with nothing much else going on, it wouldn't get you excited at all. It's only when things start building on top of it, the vocal and the orchestral parts, it came to life. And there again, it's in Jeff's head and it's where it stayed until he moved on quite a way." "Mr. Blue Sky, it's become a classic. It's been used on adverts, hasn't it. It's the theme song for... Jeff Lynne supports Birmingham City and his team run out to that every single home game." "Mr. Blue Sky (Out Of The Blue, 1977): John Lennon once called ELO the 'son of the Beatles.' It's unclear whether he meant that as praise or put down. Either way, their DNA is all over this one. In fact, for a band often accused of being nothing more than an obvious Fab Four pastiche, Mr. Blue Sky was the Electric Light Orchestra's pastich-iest of them all. You have an invariable, thudding bassline straight out of Hello Goodbye; an anvil-banging rhythm from Abbey Road; verses trailing along to the same two notes, like I Am The Walrus; then a calling card-eccentric construction of sudden shifts, from the dizzying harmonic interplay to a sharply buoyant guitar. The background vocalists, at one point, even pant along in a direct reference to A Day in the Life. To me, though, Mr. Blue Sky suffers most from its proximity. The Beatles, circa the mid-1970s, were still a looming presence in the rearview. Some, like the big-spending Lorne Michaels of SNL (and, well, me — minus the million-dollar guarantee to appear on my late-night comedy show) were holding out hopes for a reunion. Long past the expiration date for such conceits, Jeff Lynne's loving-care studiocraft can now rightly be called canny homage. You'll find more than mimicry at work, as ELO so perfectly incorporates the decade's signature rock-band devices - things that have moved into the collective consciousness, but once had a pretty-cool-back-then verve: There's the very contemporaneous spaceship cover imagery, of course, but also the song's vocoded treatment of its title and a positively tornadic combination of chorus and strings. Longtime drummer Bev Bevan was credited in the liner notes with 'fire extinguisher' on this track. Too, in keeping with the grandiose prog-pedantry of the day, Mr. Blue Sky is the final song in a four-piece 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' on side three of the original two-LP edition of Out of the Blue. (The stormy weather effects included on the opening segment Standin' in the Rain were reportedly recorded by Lynne outside the chalet where he composed the album. Dude!) Mr. Blue Sky would become the third Top 40 single (after Turn to Stone and Sweet Talkin' Woman) to emerge from Out of the Blue, going to 35 in the U.S. and 6 in Britain. The truth is, it's absolutely stuffed with details, both cribbed and otherwise - a much braver attempt at tribute than ELO is often given credit for. They took the Beatles' own late period tendency toward symphonic pomposity, and made it their own." "You know, if you listen to something like Mr. Blue Sky-- You know, I hear it a lot in ads now or in movies and... I think it was in a movie I watched recently and it was just... It's just amazing, you know, and it's not derivative. It's not really coming from anybody but Jeff. Nobody could do it quite like that. And I think he's not really noticed enough for what he does, really." "I'm a sucker for, sort of the hits, so Mr. Blue Sky is a pretty special song. It's probably the one that everyone would choose, so it's a bit boring to choose it. But it's great. It just works. And if you're in the car and it's a nice day, it really works." "The [Out Of The Blue] record's highlight was the 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' which took up the whole side three. And its finale was to become their most recognizable song ever, and my favorite, Mr. Blue Sky. [...] Although Mr. Blue Sky is probably the most recognized ELO song, it actually wasn't their most successful, only reaching #35 in the US charts and #6 over here [in the UK]. But those chart positions have hindered its popularity. It's also become a major hit on social media channels on the net one of the most covered songs by Joe Public. And if you don't believe me, take a look. More recently, it also reached a whole new world audience when it was featured as one of the highlights of this year's London 2012 Olympic ceremonies." "The record company wanted me to do a double album, which was to become Out Of The Blue. I went to Switzerland and got this little chalet, tucked out of the way in the middle of nowhere so I'd have no distractions. So the first two weeks I was there, it was really miserable, drizzly, and cloudy and not very nice at all. Couldn't come up with anything. But one day, I got up and opened the curtains and, 'Wow! This is where I am!' It was beautiful. It was vistas and beautiful green mountains going away in the distance, blue sky. And it was absolutely fabulous. The sun was shining. And it inspired me to come up with-- right away I wrote Mr. Blue Sky. I wish I could say yes [that I wrote all of it then], but I [only] came up with the verse. I'll try and remember it now. [plays opening chords] Felt very good about the chord sequence. Obviously I hadn't finished the tune yet. [...] Have you ever heard of 'Sparky's Magic Piano'? It's an old, old thing that used to be on long wave [radio]. It's like a kid getting a piano lesson. And it's a record. He falls asleep and he dreams his piano can speak and there's a vocoder in it. While I was making Mr. Blue Sky, somebody'd just made a brand new vocoder for the first time. And we got the prototype and we started messing with it all day. It sounded like it had acid on it, you know. And electric voice, y'know. It was magic. [The very last bit] actually says 'please turn me over'. It was because it was the end of that side of the album." "I actually did think [Mr. Blue Sky] was good when I did it. And then like lately, the last few years, I've listened to it, it's come on the radio and I've thought, 'Hang on, I though it was better than that.' Because, it's just some of the sounds on there are a bit wooly, y'know, and it's a bit covered in clothes. And I wanted it to be... have more clarity and wanted it to be... more punch, y'know, and to just come out more at it. And it was always just a bit [mumbles to demonstrate how it sounded muffled]." "[Mr. Blue Sky was written when] I was on a mountain in Switzerland. [He yodels here a bit.] It had been horribly foggy for days. Then the fog lifted and beams of this fabulous sunlight came down and the sky was blue. I wrote the song right there and then." "I used to listen to them on the radio, my old ELO records, and go 'Oh wow, it's not quite as good as I thought it was.' It's not that it's bad — it just doesn't quite sound the way that I thought it did when I originally recorded them. Since then I've had many more years — like 30 more years — experience so I thought I'd try re-recording Mr. Blue Sky to start with, just to see what I could get it to sound like. And I was very pleased with the results. I played it for my manager and he said, 'Oh wow, it sounds so much better. Why don't you try another one and see how you get on?' I did Evil Woman and Strange Magic and they came out really well, crisp and clear. That's what I was looking for. The old ones, not that they're bad — I still like them very much — but they got a bit wooly in places, just sort of not punchy enough." "For the last few years, I've heard [the ELO songs] on the radio, I've been driving or whatever or just tuning through, and I go, 'Mmm... Mr. Blue Sky, I thought it was better than that.' [laughs] And I was sort of bothered by the wooliness of the sound and the lacking in punch a bit. And I didn't particularly like the way the vocals sounded. [...] Funnily enough, in Mr. Blue Sky, the old one, the bell noise is actually a fire extinguisher." "Lynne even had mixed feelings when the original Mr. Blue Sky track was played at the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies." "Mr. Blue Sky had a lot of stuff going on, little instances popping up. Back then, you could fit 'em in between, where there was an empty space on one section. The engineer, Mack, would say, 'You can have four tracks there, just on that bit.' Those little pieces popping up-- that is the best fun. I love doing harmonies; it's my favorite thing to do." "Songs such as Strange Magic, Do Ya, Mr. Blue Sky and Don't Bring Me Down have permanently fused with the very fabric of pop culture." "A string of hit singles ensued [including] Mr. Blue Sky cemented Lynne's reputation as an excellent songwriter. [...] Of all the songs he recorded with ELO, he cites Mr. Blue Sky as his favourite. 'Of the hits, yes...', Lynne states." "Well, one of the most illustrious people I've worked with, Paul McCartney, his favorite song of mine is Mr. Blue Sky. And he really went to town on telling me about it which I was thrilled about, you know, because coming from him, it's like a... it's pretty good... [I did write in Switzerland when the sun came out.] And it was just miserable for like about five days and then suddenly, one day I get up and there's this view all of a sudden, there's this wonderful mountains and just gorgeous. And it inspired Mr. Blue Sky, it really did. " "But their best songs, the inimitable Livin' Thing or Mr. Blue Sky, are timeless and ever-present and unique." "Of course, the things that happen in your life get into the song, in certain parts of the song, or inspire it, or literally inspire it. Like Mr. Blue Sky, I was actually in Switzerland and it was cloudy all the time. I didn't see... I'd just got there. I'd been there about a week. Nothing. Didn't see any views at all. And one day, bang, the whole thing [was] wide open-- blue sky, the sun is shining, all these mountains going on forever, of course. And it inspired Mr. Blue Sky, so that was a literal inspiration. I don't really get that many inspirations. That was quite a rare one, Mr. Blue Sky, because it was such an obvious thing to happen. And, you know, it just came to me." "The Beatlesque Mr. Blue Sky has grown in stature over the years, with artists as diverse as rapper Common and indie-rock singer Mayer Hawthorne incorporating it into their songs. The single got to only No. 35, but its place on the two-LP Out of the Blue is pivotal: It's the final part of side three's 'Concerto for a Rainy Day Suite.' Plus, it's one of the best-ever uses of the vocoder in a '70s song." "When I wrote Mr. Blue Sky, I was actually in Switzerland on a mountain. [Sings 'on a mountain in Switzerland, yo lo lo lo lolo'] Anyway, I was on the mountain. And I'd been there like about a week and it'd been clouded and misty all the time I'd been there. I thought, 'this is gonna be great inspiration, you know, mountains.' And one day the sun came blasting out and it was all blue sky and I could see forever, you know. And it was just beautiful. And... it made me write Mr. Blue Sky." "A lot of ELO songs are simpler than you might think. I could show you how to play Mr. Blue Sky in 10 minutes. It's no symphony." "But I do remember listening to Mr. Blue Sky on the radio, and I thought, 'You know, this doesn't sound like I thought it did when I made it.' I've thought this many times about those old ELO records..." "Just as a record, Mr. Blue Sky is a serious piece of work. I mean, it kind of takes that I Am The Walrus thing to another level. It's probably jumping off from that there, but I think ELO kind of jumps off from there. But it definitely became something particular to him, and that was a real high point." "One of the guests at tonight's ceremony is former Blues and Villa boss Alex McLeish. He says he has always been a huge ELO fan and Mr. Blue Sky is one of his favourite songs." "Evil Woman, Mr. Blue Sky, Livin' Thing and Don't Bring Me Down can't fail to brighten your day." "One of the first [songs written for Out Of The Blue] was Mr. Blue Sky. It had been cloudy and misty and horrible, you couldn't see where you were, and then one day the sun came out and the mist disappeared. It was fantastic, these giant mountains appeared everywhere. So I wrote Mr. Blue Sky-- very literal! The whole Concerto For A Rainy day kinda came out of that. [...] I was trying out new things, like the Vocoder, which I used on Mr. Blue Sky. The factory that had just built the prototype was in Stuttgart, which was only an hour from Munich. Talk about luck! So we sent the girlfriends off to pick it up. There was no manual, it was just that new, and we spent the whole day just getting it to do something, but once we got it going it was beautiful. It's still the best Vocoder I've heard." "[Mr. Blue Sky] closed side three of the [Out Of The Blue] record, comprising the four-song musical suite, 'Concerto For A Rainy Day', that turned out to be Lynne's farewell to symphonic rock. [...] [Reinhold] Mack: 'Some of those classically trained musicians, feeling like they were back in kindergarten, clearly weren't going to stand for [being told to bring their own chairs and music stands into the studio], but about 80 percent of them said, Sure, see you there in an hour, and they all turned up. As there was also a 32-piece choir, it had to perform in the lobby while some of the orchestra musicians played their instruments lined up against the walls. The place was mobbed, and in those circumstances the sound we got on tracks like Mr. Blue Sky was pretty good.' " "Mr Blue Sky must be the song in rock history which feels the most like a No.1 without having been a No.1. With its episodic structure and heavy classical overtones, you imagine it as a monolithic 70s chart-topper on a par with Bohemian Rhapsody, but-- incredibly-- it only reached No.6. No matter, it's as close to a signature tune as ELO have got, and it's the logical way to end the show." "...ingeniously build, Beatlesque songs such as Mr. Blue Sky and 10538 Overture have outlasted their critics, and now the softly spoken 66-year-old Brummie finds himself adored again." "Lynne's legendary hits from his heyday with ELO in the 1970s have also been popping up everywhere, including high-profile movie soundtracks such as American Hustle, and national TV advertising campaigns, where songs like Mr. Blue Sky have been used repeatedly." "One of the first to emerge [from the Out Of The Blue songwriting efforts] was Mr Blue Sky. 'It had been cloudy and misty and horrible, you couldn't see where you were, and then one day the sun came out and the mist disappeared. It was fantastic, these giant mountains appeared everywhere. So I wrote Mr Blue Sky — very literal!' [...] The second single [from Out Of The Blue] was the aforementioned Mr Blue Sky, a song so Beatlesque that it's easy to hear why John Lennon once hailed ELO as the 'Sons of the Beatles'. Understandably, Lynne remains particularly proud of Mr. Blue Sky. 'The song captured what my vision of ELO was all about. All the bits that come in and out, the backing vocals, the cellos sliding, all the little naughty bits, the sound effects, everything is exactly what I imagined ELO to be. Particularly distinctive was the track's inclusion of voices rendered electronic via the era's hottest new musical toy, the Vocoder 2000. 'The factory that had just built the prototype was in Stuttgart, only an hour from Munich,' Lynne has explained. 'So we sent the girlfriends off to pick it up. There was no manual, it was that new. We spent the whole day just getting it to do something, but once we got it going it was beautiful. It's still the best Vocoder I've heard. That was a treat, you always want to innovate and get ahead with technology.' Because the song is located at the end of Side 3 of the album, the Vocoder voice at the end sings, 'Please turn me over'. Lynne has also revealed that the album's epic 19-minute 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' grew naturally out of Mr Blue Sky. 'I loved the second side of Abbey Road and I thought I wouldn't mind trying a suite like that. Because it was a double album I had so much room to work with. It was quite complex to make.'" "...after a sudden burst of inspiration while he was hidden away in a rented chalet in the village of Bassins in the Swiss Alps, just beyond Lake Geneva. Armed with his guitar and a Revox tape recorder, he just sat there trying to write. For two weeks, the dreaded musical equivalent of writer s block thwarted him, and with a deadline of four weeks to write the material, the situation was less than ideal. Added to this, the weather had been really dispiriting. Then one day he got up to see the mists had lifted; the sun was shining and the mountains were all lit up. This change was well worth celebrating in music, and Mr Blue Sky was the result. Perhaps, to quote another evergreen, good-weather song from about five years earlier, he could see clearly now the rain had gone. [...] Heavy rain sometimes interrupted the football during what turned out to be one of the wettest German summers on record, and also gave him the idea for 'Concerto For A Rainy Day', which occupied Side Three of the album and of which Mr Blue Sky comprised the fourth and final segment. [...] The [Out Of The Blue] album s undoubted high point came on Side Three, with 'Concerto for a Rainy Day', a four track musical suite based on the weather, culminating in the gloriously uplifting Mr Blue Sky. In just five minutes it was part catchy song, part classical bombast in the best possible way, and according to some, yet again with a definite nod to The Beatles. As a journalist from Mojo some years later would have it, 'counterfeit confections were never more obvious, nor delicious, than this imitation of A Day In The Life's middle section.' It also benefited from state-of-the-art technology. A brand new vocoder was coming onto the market, and they got hold of the prototype. The electric voice, Jeff joked, 'sounded like it had asthma!' Although Mr Blue Sky was not destined to be their biggest-selling or highest-charting single, it would become probably the best-loved song in the entire ELO canon, with a timeless appeal which crossed all generations and all tastes. [Jeff Lynne stated:] 'It was one of the first songs I ever wrote with really posh chords and a very simple melody, and I think it's the simplicity of the song and the tune. And the words are quite simple. It's like a nursery rhyme kind of thing, that's how I meant it to be. [...] However, the following year [1978] Mr Blue Sky, followed in turn by Wild West Hero and then Sweet Talkin Woman, all reached No. 6, the last three all being issued on coloured as well as black vinyl. [...] The Diary Of Horace Wimp, a story about someone who s a bit of a twit and could ever get anything done, was not a million miles removed in feel from Mr Blue Sky... [...] There was even another brief return to the lower end of the singles chart in September 2012, when the London Olympics opening and closing ceremony some weeks later featured Mr Blue Sky, creating demand for the track as a download. Two years later, the youth charity Rhythmix organised a poll to find Britain s favourite feel-good tune, and Mr Blue Sky came first. By this time several acts including Joe Brown, Lily Allen, Rock Choir, and The Delgados had recorded and released their own versions of the song, as had Jim Bob (formerly of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine) as a theme tune to the BBC Radio 4 sitcom by the same name. It had also been featured in several feature films, including Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Game Plan, Role Models, Martian Child, and A Smile As Big As The Moon, television programmes such as Doctor Who, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and American Dad!, and commercials for Volkswagen and Glidden House Paint. Equally pleasing to Jeff was another airing of the song on 27 February 2011 at Wembley Stadium after the match in celebration of Birmingham City FC winning the League Cup Final, as well as at every home game, Jeff having long been a staunch Blues fan. [...] Another British musical icon from a more recent generation had also become part of the picture. Take That frontman Gary Barlow had been a long-term fan of ELO, as evidenced by their 2007 No. 1 hit Shine with its echoes of Mr Blue Sky . The group also used samples of the latter song for the live version of Shine while on tour." "Well actually, [I wasn't sure about Mr. Blue Sky] when I went to master it, you know, mastering the single Mr. Blue Sky. And it just sounded... Always speakers in the cutting rooms are really flat, you know, so you don't get any excitement from the speaker. And I thought, 'Mmm... Maybe I didn't get it quite right.' But when I got it home, it was actually pretty good. And so I soon forgot about the worrisome bit. [...] I suppose [Mr. Blue Sky] would have been [my signature song], yeah, it would be. 'Cause nearly everybody knows that one, you know, everywhere, kind of. And so, I suppose that is the most known one I've got." "He wrote Mr. Blue Sky, for instance, as a nursery rhyme with a sophisticated accompaniment." "John Lennon once called Electric Light Orchestra the 'son of the Beatles.' It's unclear whether he meant that as praise or put down but, either way, the Fab Four's DNA is all over Mr. Blue Sky. In fact, for a band often accused of being nothing more than an obvious Beatles pastiche, Mr. Blue Sky was the Electric Light Orchestra's pastich-iest of them all. You have an invariable, thudding bassline straight out of Hello Goodbye; an anvil-banging rhythm from Abbey Road; verses trailing along to the same two notes, like I Am The Walrus; then a calling card-eccentric construction of sudden shifts, from the dizzying harmonic interplay to a sharply buoyant guitar. The background vocalists, at one point, even pant along in a direct reference to A Day in the Life. To me, though, Mr. Blue Sky — released on October 3, 1977 as part of Out of the Blue — suffers most from its proximity. The Beatles, circa the mid-1970s, were still a looming presence in the rearview. Some, like the big-spending Lorne Michaels of SNL (and, well, me — minus the million-dollar guarantee to appear on my late-night comedy show) were holding out hopes for a reunion. Long past the expiration date for such conceits, Jeff Lynne's loving-care studiocraft can now rightly be called canny homage. You'll find more than mimicry at work, as Electric Light Orchestra so perfectly incorporates the decade's signature rock-band devices — things that have moved into the collective consciousness, but once had a pretty-cool-back-then verve: There's the very contemporaneous spaceship cover imagery, of course, but also the song's vocoded treatment of its title and a positively tornadic combination of chorus and strings. Longtime drummer Bev Bevan was credited in the liner notes with 'fire extinguisher' on this track. Too, in keeping with the grandiose prog-pedantry of the day, Mr. Blue Sky is the final song in a four-piece 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' on side three of the original two-LP edition of Out of the Blue. The stormy weather effects included on the opening segment Standin' in the Rain were reportedly recorded by Jeff Lynne outside the chalet where he composed the album. (Dude!) Mr. Blue Sky would become the third Top 40 single (after Turn to Stone and Sweet Talkin' Woman) to emerge from Out of the Blue, going to 35 in the U.S. and No. 6 in Britain. The truth is, it's absolutely stuffed with details, both cribbed and otherwise - a much braver attempt at tribute than Electric Light Orchestra is often given credit for. They took the Beatles' own late-period tendency toward symphonic pomposity, and made it their own." "He was the Jeff Lynne who fought a legal battle with the group's bass guitarist Kelly Groucutt when the latter sued for unpaid royalties. [Kelly] Groucutt claimed he had written the middle section of Mr. Blue Sky but Lynne saw things differently: 'Kelly Groucutt was an employee and was paid that way,' said Lynne. 'Instead of spending his money on lawyers, he should check his contracts properly first.' Groucutt found himself effectively fired after an out-of-court settlement." "The [2012] film was named after Mr Blue Sky, now Britain s unofficial summer anthem, an eccentric classic beloved of daytime radio programmers and community choirs." "McCartney, he says, ribs him about basing ELO on the Beatles. 'He says to me, Mr. Blue Sky, I know where you got that riff from.' He thinks the soaring strings and rhythm of the song were based on the Beatles A Day in the Life." "I like Mr. Blue Sky. That's a good one to play, fun to play live. " "Jeff Lynne, music visionary behind the Electric Light Orchestra, always things big. By giving songs such as Mr. Blue Sky and Livin' Thing grand symphonic settings, the sends them souring to heaven. 'Deep down, I think the reason I moved to California was because I wanted to see a blue sky everyday,' [Lynne] tells me before explaining why his signature song became so huge. 'Mr. Blue Sky is quite a nice simple song with some nice little progressions but the words are universal. Everybody wants the sun to shine... and a clear blue sky.' Mr. Blue Sky has soundtracked high-profile movies including Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Wall-E and Shaun Of The Dead." "Mr. Blue Sky was the song that kind of came along from [Nigel's] university days, that followed him along, really, and consequently, has come down to us now. The song reflect Nig's personality to a T. You can't help but bring yourself along a little bit taller when it starts to play. You can help but smile. That was Nig, through and through, dancing around the kitchen all the time so it's a good theme tune. Pre-chidren, Nigel and I had a lovely little cottage down on Dartmoor and then we'd walk to the malls and have a lovely time. It was his birthday weekend and he was curled up upstairs while I went downstairs to make birthday breakfast. And I remember slapping the music on really loud. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Mr. Blue Sky starts playing. Down he comes to pop open the champagne for his birthday for the morning breakfast. That's a very strong memory of just me and him in a little cottage with a dog. It snowed. His birthday's New Year's Eve. So that was just a nice little getaway. [...] Nige, in the summmer of 2013 was like Nige, normal. Everything fine. We had a beautiful holiday, fortunate enough to go to Jamaica, had two weeks out there with the boys. It was super. Came back from there and about two or three weeks later, he had a sandwich, actually, a bit of bread got caught in his throat. So I patted him on the back. I said, 'You ought to chew your food a bit better than that.' He said, 'Yeah, that happened not so long back as well.' I said, 'Oh, maybe you've got an ulcor or something growing. Maybe you should go get yourself checked out.' So he duly did and went had a camera put down his throat to check it all out. And that day changed everything. Going from a normal, healthy, living life every day to being told that we're 99% certain, sir, that you have got cancer of the esophagus. They said, 'We'll give you three years at the best.' Which we're grateful of. But unfortunately, twelve weeks later after diagnosis, Nigel passed away. And cards obviously come flooding through the door. And I really, really do appreciate everyone's kind words. Nige affected a lot of people. He touched an awful lot of people. There were hundreds and hundreds of cards. But one note I kept kind of getting from these cards, one sort of theme that coming through the cards was everyone saying, 'We're really sorry and sad.' And the same words kept coming back and I felt so privileged to have had Nige, albeit for the short time I had him in my life. I thought how can I feel sad. This kind of ran through onto the funeral and the one thing that I wanted to put over to the huge, big, packed church was everyone please just don't be sad. How can we be sad when we've had Nige in our lives. How can you all feel such sorrow when he's brought so much joy that we've got to be grateful that Nige was even here in the first place. And how much strength we can all take from him and his dignified, strong ways. One point I wanted to make at the funeral was to bring Nige's song to light to everybody. And most people knew it was Nige's song anyway, but we had it printed out on the order of service and we had it playing when we left the church. And we all piled out and say, it was mid January and the sky was blue. A beautiful, beautiful, stunningly blue sky and it was going to be no other way. [...] I was organizing a charity ball in honor of Nigel and the boys saw how much work was going into it and what it was all about. And Charlie just said to me, 'Mummy, I'd like to raise some money for cancer research.' He said, 'We could do a cake sale, Mum. Or we could play Mr. Blue Sky in the background while we're selling cakes because it's Daddy's favourite song.' And one thing literally led to another, it evolved into [the idea that] we could sing Mr. Blue Sky and suddenly, before we knew it, we were recording Mr. Blue Sky with the whole school being involved to sell as a charity single to raise money for cancer research. The introduction to the song is very well known and it was decided that as Charlie basically came up with the idea of this project, he should do the weather report at the beginning. So he says, 'today's forecast calls mainly for blue skies.' [plays the charity single opening] When I heard the finished CD, I was truly blown away at how good it sounded. From classroom 3W at the school [I was] just amazed at what it sounds like and how happy and cheerful each and every one of those children were when they came into that room. They were nervous. They were excited. One little girl even said, 'My auntie passed away this year to cancer, so I'm singing it for her.' I didn't know the little girl. And I said, 'Are you okay?' And she said, 'Yeah, I'm going to sing really loud.' I mean, it just goes to show that children are so aware. They all knew what we were doing it for. In the middle of the song, it has an electronic voice saying 'Mr. Blue Sky.' And Henry was picked to do that bit. So he had a special part in the song as well. Mr. Blue Sky has become our family anthem. Nige introduced us to it. Played it birthdays, Sunday mornings reading the newspapers, nice sunny day, stick the music on. It was a song that when Nige past away, we played it full volume when he left the house. It is a huge, huge part of our lives. And for the boys to come up with the idea, and the idea to evolve into making the song, putting it out there with all their friends and school behind them, it's just fantastic." "My name is Allan Moore. I am a musicologist and professor emeritus at the University of Surrey. Mr. Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra which was lead by Jeff Lynne, who wrote the song, came out in 1977 on the album Out Of The Blue. And it was originally just and album track but one that took off. It's quite out of the ordinary for its time, late 1970s. There are a few songs that were around at the same time, songs like Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights [and] Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street which are slight out of the ordinary for the time. This sort of fits into that category. But what I think is really interesting about it is that it makes such a play with this word 'blue.' In popular culture we are very used to using the word 'blue'-- we talk about feeling blue, we talk about having the blues-- it has a negative sort of emotional connotation. This song turns that on its head. It takes the notion blue, which is negative, and turns it into something very positive. And musically it does that in a number of ways. [Plays piano opening] It has a beautiful sort of pregnant opening. You're not quite sure where it's going to go, but it's lively in its own right. [Continues playing and plays opening melody] That's so subtle, he goes for that note [plays the note] which is very much a blue sixth, which he then turns into the brighter major sixth. So the whole thing in a nutshell... [plays the first chords] Ah, that's beautiful. The first change of chords you get and it's that richness. [Continues playing the first verse] [...] If you've every tried to sing something that's just outside your range, you will know that your head rises, your chest rises, if you're sitting down, your bum just begins to lift off the feet to ry and reach it. It's a... I mean, we use the word uplifting, but it's phyisically lifting the body up to reach things that you can't quite reach, and I think that's one of the reasons that this is so powerful, because so many little moments like that within the song. If we listen to the first verse, then the line is something like this: [plays piano chords of the start of the first verse]. And then the final like is: [plays piano chords of the final line of the first verse]. So second verse starts in the same way: [plays piano chords of the start of the second verse]. And at the end it's risen: [plays piano chords of the final line of the second verse]. And that's the last line of the second verse. If we got the fourth verse: [plays piano chords of the start of the fourth verse], the first melody line rises. And then it finished off: [plays piano chords of the final line of the fourth verse]. And then if we go to the final verse, we start up there: [plays piano chords of the final verse]. We're way up there in that sort of stratospheric region. So over the course of six verses, the melody line itself gradually rises. Now that is very unusual. I can't think of another song that does something like that. And the effect of it is just so uplifting that that melody is just constantly pushing upwards. It always takes more energy to sing high than it does low. And that energy seems to something that if certainly you're singing along with it or trying to sing along with it, it's something you feel in your body. It's a very positive feeling. I mean, we can get our voices down there in whatever pitch: [plays the song on piano on the lower notes]. [He then plays it on the normal higher notes and hums along.] I can just about sort of get up there, but I can't [with a strained voice] anything like up there. But nonetheless, it's something you want to try and do because, you know, we all sing along with choruses. I think that's one of the reasons that this is such a powerful song. [...] If we're talking keys, then we'd have to say [plays a chord on piano] it's in F major. It is in F major and so all the sections, the verses, the choruses, they all end in F. Until we get to that moment, about three and a half minutes in, [plays the song end, leading into the 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' coda]. interestingly, that note that it comes to rest on is not the note we'd expect. plays the note] That. We'd expect it to end properly, but it doesn't. It finishes there. As if, hang on, something else is going to happen. And most versions of it, of course, something else does happen. [plays the anticipated opening of the 'Concert For A Rainy Day' coda] That is highly dissonent, but we feel it as, ugh, so yearning you have to sort of resolve. So the whole song finishes in E flat, which is not where it's supposed to finish at all. It's almost as if two songs have sort of been welded together. To my mind it works." "My name is Dr. Sam Illingworth and I am a lecturer in science communication at Manchester Metropolitan University. A couple of years ago, I was involved in a scientific expidition to go up to the arctic circle and to make measurements of methane and other greenhouse gasses. We were flying on the atmospheric research aircraft, which is an old B-80 146 aircraft. Inside it's been completely rekitted so there's a few seats for scientists but there's also a lot of instruments as well. There was an instrument I was particularly interested in, which is called the Ares instrument. It takes in [third?] measurements from the upwelling radiation from the earth. And as you can imagine, if you're interested in the upwelling thermal radiation from the earth and a cloud gets in the way, it makes the interpretation of the data much more difficult and in some cases impossible. So really, in every single case we were out flying, I was really hoping and praying, if you will, for blue skies. ELO were one of my dad's favorite bands and obviously when I was a teenager, I'd go through my dad's record collection and try and find bands I'd heard of. And in between The Clash and the Bob Marley record, there'd also be a number of ELO ones. Mr. Blue Sky's one of those songs that was just... It would always be on, really. I mean, my dad loved it and it certainly would be played on the car radio. So when I was flying up in the arctic circle, Mr. Blue Sky kept coming into my head. Every morning, I'd wake up and I'd think, 'Ah, I really hope there's going to be these lovely blue skies.' And thankfully, for the majority of the time there was. These beautiful flights over the greenlands and the wetlands of the arctic circle and bits of the arctic sea, fifty foot above the sea at two to twenty-four miles per hour. You could just see the shadow of the plane flying along this beautiful. unblemished sea and, you know, just looking up as well and just hoping for these blue skies. And so, for me, this song, Mr. Blue Sky, will always be synonymous with this wonderful time of adventure in my life." "Tremayne Crossley & Joanne Milne: [Tremayne] My name's Tremayne Crossley. [Joanne] Hi there, my name's Joanne Milne. [Tremayne] I met Joanne a number of years ago and I didn't realize that she was deaf because she was dancing at a club we were at and I couldn't understand how someone who was deaf could dance so well. But we eventually got into a conversation and she lip read extremely well. And we kinda went on from there really. Jo's got a condition called Asher's syndrome in which she's gradually losing her sight. So to lose one sense is bad. To lose two senses can be pretty depressing. So they decided she would be better off having a cochlear implant which would allow her to hear. Obviously Jo had the operation and then she had to wait for two months basically for the scaring... before they could actually turn it on to find out if it worked or not. And then we were counting down the days for the hearing aids to be switched on. [Nurse during actual hearing test] I'm going to say the months of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, August, October, November, December. Could you hear those words? [Joanne during the actual hearing test] Yes! [Joanne] Every single hair stood up on my body, tingling going throughout my body. The family was just bouncing off the walls, bouncing off the ceiling. It was sheer, incredibly, incredibly emotional hearing for the first time. [Nurse during actual hearing test] Can you hear my voice coming through both sides? [Joanne during actual hearing test] Yes! You sound very high. [Nurse during actual hearing test] It will sound high pitched at first. Your brain will readjust it for you. It won't always sound that way. [Joanne during actual hearing test] [Crying and says something unitelligible.] [Nurse during actual hearing test] It's life changing day to day. [Joanna] And I remember the doctor saying there's a chance I might be able to hear music. So when I began to discuss that with friends and family, it was amazing how it became such a debate. And everybody was recommending a song. And the it got a little bit like overwhelming and there were far too many songs to choose from. Then I can remember saying to Tremayne [that] it would be lovely to be able to streamline it onto some kind of CD. [Tremayne] I was lucky enough to asked be Jo if I'd put a playlist together of just songs that I thought she would like or that I thought she needed to listen to. And so I did a playlist of one song from every year of her life from basically her birth in 1974 all the way up to the present day. And 1978 was obviously Mr. Blue Sky. It's totally uplifting. I mean, you've got to tap your feet. You can't sit still to it. Everybody knows it. And it's of those song that when you hear it, you just smile. [Joanne] Then I heard music for the first time. Again, it was very emotional. I always thought I had a very good idea about music. I would always be able to get up and dance on the floor due to the vibration. But it showed that I knew absolutely nothing. And I can always remember when I heard music for the first time, it was probably, out of everything, it would bring emotion, to bring memory, to bring feeling. It was incredible, really. Mr. Blue Sky on the playlist is actually the fifth song. So I can remember when I was going through the first, second, third song, it was very, very emotional. But when I got to Mr. Blue Sky there was something about the song that made me want to get on my feet and start dancing. It was like a feel good song. Out of the whole playlist, that is probably the song that reminds me of the: I'm going to enjoy this; I'm going to enjoy having music in my life now. And the words were very [bitter?] with what I was going through, because it was just like a new start. It was like a new life that was waiting for me. [Tremayne] It's completely transformed her life now. She loves to listen to music. So we like nothing better than to go out in the car and have the windows down and put it on. She's not quite up to singing along yet, but we're getting there. [laughs] Of course, that's [unintelligible] she could go, but I'll do that properly. I'll do that tomorrow, but all we can do is keep dancing, I suppose." "[Mr. Blue Sky] was inspired by... I'd actually gone to Switzerland in a chalet up in the mountains just outside... just by Geneva somewhere, quite a way out. And it was horrible. It was like fog every day. And every day I'd get up and it's be like, it's great here isn't it. Couldn't see a thing, y'know, from anywhere. And so one day, the actual stuff lifted up and I realized where I was. It was marvelous. mountains everywhere you could see, valleys and all that beautiful countryside. And that's inspired Mr. Blue Sky 'cause it was actually got blue sky. Course, there were a couple of pubs around there as well, which was great. Loved that nice, strange beer they have there. So that's what it was, really. It was so grim the first few days. In fact, I think I didn't do anything for like a week. I never come up with anything, not one song and it was just down the pub instead. But finally I got one creeping out and then came Mr. Blue Sky." "And while there's nothing [on Alone In the Universe] with the sheer immediate catchiness of his best known hits, such as Mr Blue Sky, Telephone Line and Last Train To London, there are more than a few potential earworms." "But now, ELO has no context. Its licensing is a shark frenzy thrashing wildly along popular culture s reef and devouring every bit of flesh in its path. The Great White of the bunch is easily Mr. Blue Sky. What is it with that song? Is it medicinal? Our era s Happy Days are Here Again? I don't know if we need Mr. Blue Sky in these perilous times, but I know I could never hear it again and be nearly ace, which is sad because structurally it's a more or less perfect song, as close as Lynne gets to his beloved Fab Four. According to the band s IMDB entry, Mr. Blue Sky has been used about 18 times in various film and television projects over the years. It's as if there's a conference room somewhere filled with a music supervision team drinking cold coffee and one says, 'OK, for this act break, when all seems lost, Evan looks deep within himsel... oh fuck it, let s just use Mr. Blue Sky, how much is it again?' Poor Evan deserves more. It's like how they used to use Jeff Buckley s version of Hallelujah whenever something tragic happened on-screen, like Mark Harmon getting shot in a bodega on The West Wing (all he wanted was a candy bar). Such lassitude takes us really to the point where Mr. Blue Sky achieves the opposite of what Lynne most likely intended — his own genuinely uplifting and optimistic version of Here Comes the Sun. Instead of elevating the masses, it brings us down ('groos...' ) and drills open a hole in our heads where the rain comes in." "Perhaps one of the most recognizable qualities of ELO s music is the use of voice alteration affects produced by the Vocoder and the talk box. The Vocoder (a portmanteau of the words 'voice' and 'encoder') is a system that allows input (the voice) to be passed through a series of filters and modified electronically. A talk box allows input (an instrument such as guitar or keyboard) to be passed through an airtight tube, which is placed in the musician s mouth. This allows the musician to modify the sound by changing the shape of his mouth. Both effects essentially produce the same result: a robotic, other-worldly sounding voice (Goetzman 2009). While the 'robot voice' is only featured in five of the songs in this study, in each of those instances it is a very prominent feature of the song. In four of the songs — Mr. Blue Sky, Confusion, All Over The World, and Sweet Talkin Woman — the altered voice sings the title of the song. [...] ELO s principal songwriter Jeff Lynne is a multiinstrumentalist and wrote songs and passages on both piano4 and guitar, and this skill can be seen in the chord progressions. For example... of an instrument-related progression can be seen in the chords of the verse of Mr. Blue Sky (F, Am, A, Dm, G, Em, A), which, because of the similar chord — shapes and minimal note-changing, appears to have possibly been written on a keyboard instrument. [...] Each song included in this study begins with an introduction. In thirteen of the twenty-two songs (approximately 59%), the introduction is simply a riff or ostinato pattern that incorporates the chords of the upcoming verse. Examples of this type of introduction can be found in... Mr. Blue Sky.. [...] An interlude is a formal section that features instrumental solos and lacks texted vocals — that is, actual lyrics and not syllables or scat singing. Typically in ELO s music, there is one interlude per song (the exception to this is I m Alive), and it occurs after the second statement of the chorus. In some songs, the interlude is harmonically very similar to other parts of the songs and may be viewed as such. For example, Mr. Blue Sky... include[s] instrumental solos that are based on the chords of the verses, and Don't Bring Me Down includes an instrumental solo that is based on the chords of the chorus, which would allow one to theoretically label these as a modified verse or chorus. [...] In most of the songs, the last bars, or conclusion, consist mainly of the repeated chorus as the volume drops and the song fades to silence. However, two of the songs, Mr. Blue Sky and Xanadu, include completely new material in the conclusion.... The overall forms of the songs are typically a type of verse-chorus form or thirty-two-bar form." "The most annoying Grammy Awards tradition is the tag-team performance of a classic artist with a modern artist almost everybody looks awkward, and the results are rarely revelatory. Last year s ceremony found Lynne reigniting ELO with a medley of Evil Woman and Mr. Blue Sky, the latter assisted by... Ed Sheeran. But not even that odd pairing could derail the Out Of The Blue masterpiece, which remains the sonic equivalent of a double rainbow. Lynne bogged the track deep into that double-LP, as the finale of his 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' suite. But it functions best as a stand-alone art-pop epic, a sort of engorged Penny Lane — built on stomping pianos, manic cowbell (credited as a 'fire extinguisher'), and an octave-spanning choral vocal arrangement." "Mr. Blue Sky (1977): I suppose this is my most well-known song. Everybody tells me something different about it. It's even got crazy appeal to kids since it's like a nursery rhyme. I remember writing the words down. I was at a chalet in the mountains of Switzerland and it was all misty and cloudy all the way around. I didn't see any countryside for the first four days or so, and then everything cleared and there was this enormous view forever and the sky was blue. By this point, we were playing stadiums. I think the biggest crowed was 83,000. It was fun, but kind of scary as well. I'd think, 'I hope the Beatles are on afterwards — otherwise we're gonna get murdered.' The concerts were horrible. I couldn't hear the strings, and half the time you had to turn them off because they used to run around while they played them. I was reluctant to become a real rock star. I was shy and was always told to not get a big head. And my favorite thing in the world was to work 14 hours a day in the studio. Everything else was peripheral to me, like having the record out and promoting it. I did have a big house, but I didn't do rock-star things. I never saw myself like that. I was a songwriter, singer and producer. Rock stars are different. They dress all flashy and hang out in nightclubs. That just wasn't my priority. I liked to spend my spare moments at the pub." "[Out Of The Blue's] side three was turned over to the four-song, 19-minute 'Concerto for a Rainy Day', the most cohesive attempt at a pop symphony of his career. Everyone bawls along to Mr Blue Sky like a pissed-up Pavarotti these days, but the three less clement song sections were vastly superior." "When I wrote Mr. Blue Sky I remember sitting in the mastering room or the cutting room as it was called then and thinking, 'I m not sure about that one.' So you never really know. I probably would have second-guessed some of my bigger songs, but the schedule back then was so intense that it didn t allow for that, so the songs usually dropped out of my sweaty hands." "There were hit singles aplenty: Livin' Thing, Telephone Line, Sweet Talking Woman [sic] and his own anthem Mr. Blue Sky kept the chart compilers busy." "Mega hit Mr. Blue Sky is something of an anthem for Blues fans." "The weather [at the Swiss chalet] was crap for the first couple of weeks. I didn't come up with anything [for the Out Of The Blue album] and I was down the pub all the time, this nice little tavern in the village. Finally the weather cleared and that's what gave me the idea for the words to Mr. Blue Sky. Inspiration could come at any moment. And it did, frequently." "You never know what's going to happen, really. I mean, for instance, I was doing the single Mr. Blue Sky in the cutting room, here somewhere in England. And I remember the cutting engineer not particularly noticing while cutting it. And usually cutting engineers go, 'Ooh, I like that.' But this guy didn't say anything. And I thought, 'Oh, it must be crap then.' And who'd have thought it; that song's lived on forever." "Paul McCartney, [Lynne] says, ribs him about basing ELO on The Beatles. 'He says to me, Mr. Blue Sky, I know where you got that riff from. He thinks the soaring strings and rhythm of the song were based on The Beatles' A Day In The Life." "Ask a friend what their favorite two or three ELO songs are and invariably they ll include Mr. Blue Sky. It's understandable because the cheerful song could well be considered by most fans as the group s masterpiece. Just don't go looking for it on the list of the band s Top 15 highest-charting singles in the U.S. Because it's not there. It's not because it wasn t released as a single. It was. The song was the follow-up to the #13 hit Turn to Stone from 1977 s double-album Out of the Blue. But in Best Classic Bands story 'Signature Songs That Weren t Chart Hits,' we note that Mr. Blue Sky inexplicably topped out at #35 on the Billboard Hot 100." "It was Lynne s genius — illustrated in songs such as Mr. Blue Sky, Livin Thing and Evil Woman — that led Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield to proclaim: 'ELO are better than The Beatles!' And even Jeff Lynne never dreamed he d hear that. [...] Inspiration came to him on the first sunny morning, when, as he later recalled, 'The mountains were lit up, and I came up with Mr. Blue Sky.' A mini-symphony in itself, Mr. Blue Sky was the touchtone for an album on which Lynne gave full rein to his ambitions." "ELO has had ties to sci-fi and fantasy for a long time. You've almost certainly heard their song Mr. Blue Sky off the flyingsaucer-emblazoned record Out of the Blue. It very notably appeared in the trailer for one of the best science fiction films of the last two decades, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." "Question: Am I the only longtime ELO follower who is somewhat baffled that Mr Blue Sky has, over the years, apparently ascended to become one of the band s most identifiable hits? A nice song, to be sure, but its status only seems to have grown over time. It only reached No. 35 on the Billboard singles chart in 1978 — yet anytime the band appears on TV or awards shows these days, Mr. Blue Sky seems to be the go-to performance song. Weird." "However, the Awesome Mix [for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2] will open with Electric Light Orchestra's Mr. Blue Sky which is a fantastic tune to open any album with. It's been used in other movies before, quite often as trailer music. We're looking forward to seeing what Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 decides to do with it." "I m always happy to see some Electric Light Orchestra representation [on a movie soundtrack], even if Mr. Blue Sky isn't my favorite song of theirs (though it's one of [James] Gunn's)." "This time, [James] Gunn had a bigger budget [for his Guardians Of The Galaxy film], which allowed him to include familiar songs from superstar acts: George Harrison's My Sweet Lord, Fleetwood Mac's The Chain (every band member watched the scene that features the song before giving approval) and ELO's Mr. Blue Sky — which scores what Gunn calls 'the most hugely insane shot I've ever done,' early in the film. 'It's the perfect song to start the movie,' says Gunn, 'because it's really joyous, but there's a really dark underpinning to it.' [...] Gunn himself has had to listen to the movies' songs over and over — but he doesn't mind. 'The weird thing is, I've never gotten sick of a Guardians song,' says Gunn, fresh from hearing Mr. Blue Sky yet again while supervising the film's sound mix. [...] 'I've always said that if the Guardians had a house band, it would be ELO,' says Gunn, 'and Mr. Blue Sky is one of my favorite songs by them. We had a hard time getting the rights. We had to really fight to get the song, and I personally appealed to Jeff Lynne.' Lynne had previously approved a song for the first Guardians that Gunn ended up cutting, which made the process harder this time. But in the end, Gunn says, 'I think we made him an offer he couldn't refuse.'" "Specifically, I m thrilled to see that Electric Light Orchestra s Mr. Blue Sky is on the soundtrack, and director James Gunn had this to say about the song s inclusion (via Rolling Stone): 'I ve always said that if the Guardians had a house band, it would be ELO, and Mr. Blue Sky is one of my favorite songs by them. We had a hard time getting the rights. We had to really fight to get the song, and I personally appealed to Jeff Lynne. I think we made him an offer he couldn t refuse.' Apparently, one of the things that made getting Mr. Blue Sky for the soundtrack was the fact that Jeff Lynne previously approved the use of another ELO song [Livin' Thing], but it ended up not making the cut. It's a good thing that he was able to secure the rights though, because Gunn says it plays through 'the most hugely insane shot I ve ever done' and 'it's the perfect song to start the movie.'" "[James] Gunn says that ELO s Mr. Blue Sky soundtracks the 'most hugely insane shot I ve ever done' in the [Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2] film. 'I ve always said that if the Guardians had a house band, it would be ELO,' Gunn continued, 'and Mr. Blue Sky is one of my favorite songs by them. We had a hard time getting the rights. We had to really fight to get the song, and I personally appealed to Jeff Lynne.'" "The [Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2] filmmaker also teased that they had to 'fight really hard' to get the rights to the soundtrack's first song, ELO's Mr. Blue Sky. The director initially had planned on using the song in the first Guardians movie, where he even had to personally appeal to Electric Light Orchestra lead singer Jeff Lynne to approve the song. After the song was approved for the first movie, it ended up being cut, which made the process even more difficult this time around, but James Gunn teased that they made him an offer he couldn't refuse." "According to Rolling Stone, the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie had a bigger budget, which allowed the producers to get better-known songs. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 starts with a scene set to Electric Light Orchestra's Mr. Blue Sky--and it's the 'most hugely insane shot I've ever done,' Gunn told Rolling Stone. 'It's the perfect song to start the movie,' says Gunn. 'Because it's really joyous, but there's a really dark underpinning to it.' Gunn explained that he thinks that if the Guardians had a house band, it would be ELO. He pushed hard to get the rights to Mr. Blue Sky--but it wasn't easy. ELO singer Jeff Lynne approved a song for the first movie, but it was cut, which complicated the negotiating process for the sequel, apparently. 'We had to really fight to get the song, and I personally appealed to Jeff Lynne. I think we made him an offer he couldn't refuse,' Gunn said." "The exhilarating credits sequence [for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2] then shows us the Guardians in action: They re out to slaughter an oversize tentacled monster that has four sets of angler-fish jaws, but the battle gets shoved into the background — in the foreground is the giant walking tree Groot, now Baby Groot (about a foot tall, still growing back from a lone twig), as he bops and dances to the sublime pop camp of ELO s Mr. Blue Sky, letting us know that this is a movie with its background/foreground priorities in the right place." "Out Of The Blue was a commercial monster, shipping quadruple platinum and spinning off the hit singles Turn To Stone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDhJU_cNCZE) and Sweet Talkin Woman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v2r_VnmL6A), as well as the deathless movie-trailer staple Mr. Blue Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjPqsDU0j2I). " "A Birmingham band plays a key role in a new space blockbuster. ELO — and in particular their 1978 hit Mr Blue Sky — is used in the spectacular opening scene to the eagerly-anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, which opens on Friday. And the sequel s director has revealed how he considers the Electric Light Orchestra, formed by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood in 1970, to be the house band of the Guardians. And how the film is giving ELO a whole new, younger audience of fans. Seventies pop music is the biggest star of the space blockbuster, and director James Gunn told Radio 4 s Front Row: 'We have one enormous. hugely insane shot at the beginning of the movie to Mr Blue Sky by ELO. I often think of ELO — if the Guardians had a house band, that's who it would be. Epic, loud space rock from the 70s. Mr Blue Sky is a really beautiful song, it s a really happy song, but like so many things in Guardians it is contrasting with what is on screen, which is Baby Groot dancing while his team mates are battling this monster to the death in the background. Mr Blue Sky is a bright happy song but there is a dark underpinning to it at the end, with here comes Mr Night it's got some malevolence there and I think that's really what the movie is.' James personally appealed to Jeff Lynne to get the rights to the song, saying 'We made him an offer he couldn t refuse!'. ELO fits right in to a film set in space, as its iconic logo is a spaceship. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is about a group of aliens who are thrown together, including a baby dancing tree and talking racoon voiced by Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, to save the galaxy again." "The Electric Light Orchestra song Mr. Blue Sky, which helps kick off the [Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2movie, was a different story. ELO leader Jeff Lynne initially resisted letting Gunn use the 1977 tune — which Feige calls 'one of our favorite songs at Marvel Studios' — perhaps because he was miffed that another ELO song, Livin Thing, had been cut from the first film. 'Maybe he wasn t so happy about that,' Gunn says. 'We were screwed.' In the end, for the right price, Lynne relented. " "As a music-loving child of the 70s and early 80s, James Gunn has an especially fond spot in his art for Electric Light Orchestra. Yet a change to his 2014 Disney/Marvel smash Guardians of the Galaxy could have cost him a shot at using an ELO song. One of the most memorable scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (opening Friday) is the opening credits, as Baby Groot (as minimally voiced by Vin Diesel) dances to the ELO hit Mr. Blue Sky. Landing the rights to the track, though, was not entirely blue skies. That's because Gunn, the director of the planned Guardians trilogy, had ultimately passed on including a tune from Jeff Lynne, the leader of ELO, in his first Guardians film. 'We got the rights to the first one' — the 1976 ELO hit Livin Thing — 'but I cut the scene,' Gunn tells The Post s Comic Riffs. Thus, the cutting-room floor last time nearly undercut the cinematic dance floor this time. 'It was a whole montage around Livin Thing, and it was awesome,' Gunn continues. 'To be honest, I think I regret cutting the montage from the movie. I think people would have loved it. I would have loved to put it on even on the Blu-ray — but you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the song, and we couldn t afford to do that just for the Blu-ray.' Fast-forward to the sequel. Team Gunn approached Lynne again for the rights to a different tune. The ELO leader initially balked, however, says Gunn: 'He was hesitant because we had cut Livin Thing.' The director, though, says he believes Lynne is happy with how it all turned out. And last week, as ELO was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lynne and the band played Mr. Blue Sky as part of their celebratory set a winning performance marking the song s return to the zeitgeist s center spotlight." "This uplifting tune has a pretty straightforward meaning. Group lead Jeff Lynne told the BBC radio he came up with the song while locking himself in a Swiss chalet to write ELO's sophomore album. 'It was dark and misty for two weeks, and I didn't come up with a thing. Suddenly the sun shone and it was, Wow, look at those beautiful Alps. I wrote Mr. Blue Sky and 13 other songs in the next two weeks.'" "[For Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Electric Light Orchestra s Blue Sky [sic] starts off the battle in space. Did you see ELO s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last week on HBO? Lead singer Jeff Lynne is 70 years old and he can sing like he did at 22!" "One of the most memorable moments in Marvel cinematic history comes during the opening credits of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. As the action kicks off, writer-director James Gunn choreographs a sequence that features Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) dancing to ELO s 1978 hit Mr. Blue Sky. The one-shot scene showcases the rest of the Guardians, led by Star-Lord/Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), battling a giant space octopus while Baby Groot shimmies and shakes on the cinematic dance floor. It's an intricate shot, and one that Gunn says he just put the finishing touches on less than a month ago. 'It took over two years of planning and acting out,' Gunn told the Sun in a recent interview. 'I first came up with the shot when I was writing the treatment for the film. I had my associate producer Simon Hatt film me as Groot with an iPhone so we could stitch it together so that it would work perfectly. 'It was literally finished two weeks ago.' In an interview with the Washington Post, Gunn revealed that he almost didn t get the rights to Mr. Blue Sky because he cut a scene from the first Guardians movie that had featured the 1976 ELO hit Livin Thing. 'It was a whole montage around Livin' Thing, and it was awesome,' Gunn told the Post. 'To be honest, I think I regret cutting the montage from the movie. I think people would have loved it. I would have loved to put it even on (just) the Blu-Ray — but you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the song, and we couldn't afford to do that just for the Blu-Ray.' When he was asked about granting Gunn and company the rights to use Mr. Blue Sky, ELO s leader Jeff Lynne initially balked. 'He was hesitant because we had cut Livin' Thing. But he eventually agreed to allow Gunn to use the track, which is a good thing since the music and the action marry perfectly in that opening shot." "Marvel Studios movies are regularly lauded for their energy and sense of fun -- and James Gunn's opening credits sequence for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is really that in a nutshell. While your standard blockbuster would focus all of its attention on the titular team's battle against an inter-dimensional space creature, Gunn's feature breaks that particular mold by instead letting Baby Groot have the spotlight and dance his way through Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra. It's certainly a ridiculous and unforgettable way to open a comic book, but as we'll discuss later, that's something that this series is particularly good at..." "In the same way the first Guardians [sic] opened with a dance sequence to a bygone hit — Quill grooving to Redbone's Come and Get Your Love while stealing an infinity stone — the sequel's bravura opening scene finds Baby Groot dancing to Electric Light Orchestra's Mr. Blue Sky while the rest of the team fights a space monster in the background, each member of the team tossed by the monster into Groot's space to briefly interact with the dancing baby tree before rejoining the fray. The scene, like the movie, is tremendously fun. But Mr. Blue Sky has been used countless times in TV and film, perhaps most memorably in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the movie that seemed to reinject Jeff Lynne's supercharged update of The Beatles back into the public's consciousness." "[Mr. Blue Sky] did start on a piano. And it was an electric piano and I was in Switzerland in the mountains at a little chalet. And I'd gone away to write Out Of The Blue, the double album, which was the first one I'd ever done. It didn't have that many track on it, now that I look at it. But anyway, I had all this gear I'd rented from a guitar shop, you know, a music shop just outside Geneva somewhere. And I'd started banging on this electric piano and I got this idea, this thumping idea. And it was all misty, everywhere really. And the actual 'Mr. Blue Sky' phrase was because I was up on this beautiful place [and] I couldn't see any of it because it was all mist and fog and just cloud, I suppose, a lot of clouds. And one day, I'd got all the chords and everything, [but] I hadn't got the words yet, properly. One day, this mist was gone and it was just the most glorious thing and the sky was like this really blue stuff. And that was the inspiration really, for the words. [...] It must have took a few days for me to get all those words down. And then obviously, maybe I touched 'em up in the studio, when I actually got into the studio in Munich, where we used to record. [The demo] was recorded on a Revox actually, not a B&O that one. 'Cause what I was trying to was to just bang some demos together to show everybody else when they came over. And they came over and learned all the bits. Went to Munich, and then we laid down-- I think I'd got eight tracks toward the double album by the time I got to Munich, and the rest of which were wrote in the studio or in the hotel room in Munich. [...] Well, [I wasn't hearing] all of [the final bits when writing the song]. But I heard a lot of it. The ideas come to me in the studio as well, you know, like when I found this fire extinguisher and it was beautiful sound. Bang, bang, bang, bang. You know, it really was a perfect... It was [a fire extinguiser], yeah, like a steel one. It sounded really good. And it was just a perfect sound for that particular point in the song. Just like, 'C'mon, wake up now, everybody.' I suppose Mr. Blue Sky is the most adventurous, I suppose. It does go into a little world of its own. And, you know, I'm very happy with that. I suppose it's one of me best ones." "The thing is with that song [Mr. Blue Sky], unlike most of the other songs in history, is that it has a... The first time I heard Bohemian Rhapsody, it was like, that's not a record, it's like an event. And Mr. Blue Sky's the same. And it's amazing that like, even though it was the seventies, my eight year old knows every word to it. It transcends generations, that song does." "What happens is there's little connection between song and scenes when you listen to the soundtrack. When you hear Mr. Blue Sky on the Guardians 2 [sic] album, Baby Groot s dance and the action in the background may play back in your mind." "So, starting off with Electric Light Orchestra s 1978 single Mr. Blue Sky, this effervescent and Beatleseque Jeff Lynne number was, ironically enough, played as a wake-up call for Atlantis astronaut Christopher Ferguson during that Space Shuttle s final mission in 2011, giving it that space opera sync quality that works well." "Initially, a gloomy dampness descended near Lake Geneva, and Lynne struggled to create the album. When the sun finally returned, so did his muse — and Mr. Blue Sky was born. 'I suppose this is my most well-known song,' Lynne told Rolling Stone in 2016. 'I remember writing the words down. I was at a chalet in the mountains of Switzerland and it was all misty and cloudy all the way around. I didn't see any countryside for the first four days or so, and then everything cleared and there was this enormous view forever and the sky was blue.'" "He [James Gunn] had to personally plead with Jeff Lynne to clear the use of Mr. Blue Sky for the delicious opening fight sequence [of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2]." "ELO, one of Birmingham's most successful and best known bands, will also have a role in the [XXI Commonwealth Games] Closing Ceremony. A cast of youngsters will perform in Birmingham city centre with award-winning choreographer Rosie Kay in a performance also featuring Birmingham Royal Ballet, including principal dancer C line Gitten and the People s Orchestra. The performance will be live and set to Mr Blue Sky by Jeff Lynne s ELO. it is planned the piece will be shot in one single uninterrupted camera shot ending with an aerial shot of Birmingham welcoming the world." "[At the Commonwealth Games hand over ceremony] We will see 400 young Brummies dancing to Jeff Lynne and ELO's classic pop anthem Mr. Blue Sky in the city centre. They will be accompanied by the People's Choir. Television viewers will see this six-and-a-half-minute finale through a single uninterrupted tracking shot ending with an aerial view of Birmingham welcoming the world." "[For the Commonwealth Games hand over ceremony] the carefully choreographed and beautifully staged five minutes of ELO s Mr Blue Sky was a huge show stopper. It was also a source of much relief that the rain stayed away. Far from the months of planning spoken of by the BBC commentator - it was only a month ago, on March 7, that the audition call went out for young dancers and about 400 came forward. But they put their all into it and made something which will linger long in the memory. There was just too much going on - the Strictly Come Dancing glitterball at the top of the Council House steps, the acrobats leaping over giant basketballs, the robots, the people s choir joining in the chorus and of course the fabulous drag acts draped over the piano. There were little references scattered about - Birmingham invented the vacuum cleaner so of course they were there keeping the red carpet clean. Choreographer Rosie Kay, from Northfield, made full use of Victoria Square s architecture - the statue of Queen Vic, the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, the sweeping steps and of course the stunning Council House all played their part. And it was an amazing end as the dancers all assembled for the beautiful aerial shot of #brum." "TV viewers around the world were greeted to a spectacular showcase of Birmingham's young dancers springing around Victoria Square to the strains of Mr Blue Sky. They saw ballet dancers, acrobats and a choir as the perfectly choreographed camera swept up and down the steps and around the jazzed up Floozie in Jacuzzi. But for the handful of passersby who gathered around the edge of the Square it was a very different experience. They would have seen dancers busily running around behind the camera getting into place for their next moment in the limelight. It was like a giant silent disco - as the entire cast of 400 dancers had earphones relaying the music to them. The only sound sweeping across the square was the harmonies from the choir assembled on the steps and the loud buzz of a drone camera hovering above the routine for the dramatic aerial views. You can hear the buzz and choir on this footage of a full dress rehearsal below. For television audiences it was a different experience showcasing the wit, talent and ambition of the city as it prepares to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. They had also been given the added surprise of the performance switching from night time in Australia to daylight in Birmingham. Poet Amerah Saleh, seemingly on stage in the Gold Coast stadium led cameras through the Birmingham Town Hall doors into the Square. The Square had been decorated with giant flowers, with the Floozie and her Sphinxes blinged up for the occasion. There was just so much going on — the Strictly Come Dancing glitterball at the top of the Council House steps, the acrobats leaping over giant basketballs, the robots, the People s Choir and People s Orchestra, joining in the chorus and, of course, the fabulous drag acts draped over the piano. And a giant banner unfurled near the end welcomed the Human Race to Birmingham before the amazing final shot of the dancers assembling to form a #brum." "Organisers of the 2022 Opening Ceremony will almost certainly be considering the involvement of Jeff Lynne s ELO. The Brummie group s signature Mr Blue Sky hit was used as the soundtrack as Birmingham welcomed the Games earlier this year. The anthemic song was accompanied by a spectacular dance routine in the city centre seen by a TV audience of one billion people." "Mr. Blue Sky, for example, is on the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy, which cleverly ties the music into the story by having its protagonist, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), carry around and listen to a Sony Walkman for the entire movie. His 'mixtape' has not only the ELO hit on it but also David Bowie's Moonage Daydream and The Runaways' Cherry Bomb." "Mr. Blue Sky, which is one both my kids love (and loved long before it got the Marvel treatment in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)." "After another tour of the US they released the multi-platinum double album and arguably their best: Out of the Blue with the hits Turn to Stone, Sweet Talkin Woman, Mr Blue Sky and Wild West Hero being some of their most celebrated and iconic songs. [...] Probably the most well known and recognised of all ELO tracks, [Mr. Blue Sky] was originally written in Switzerland, where Lynne was staying in a mountain-top chalet. 'The sky was misty and cloudy for the first few days until it all suddenly lifted and then there was just blue sky.' Written as the finale of his 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' suite off their 1977 epic Out of The Blue album, the track still has universal appeal to young and old alike, again firmly ticking that feel good box with stomping piano and coruscating vocals. Interestingly the cowbell used on the track was credited as a 'fire extinguisher'." "While Mr. Blue Sky has since attained 'signature song' status, it first arrived in 1977 as the final movement of the ambitious 'Concerto for a Rainy Day,' which comprised the entirety of Side 3 of Electric Light Orchestra's instant-classic Out of the Blue. Taken as a whole, the 'Concerto' runs a gamut of emotions beset by intense weather phenomena. It also features the King of the Vocoder, Richard Tandy. If you're ready to let a smile be your umbrella, Jeff Lynne & Co. have an album's side of progressive pop perfection served up for you." "[The Beatles'] Martha My Dear: This chamber-pop delight was initially inspired by McCartney s dog. It gets bonus points for a middle section that basically wrote Mr. Blue Sky for Jeff Lynne." "Mr. Blue Sky was another of the first eight songs I wrote for Out Of The Blue in Switzerland. We'd hired all this gear out of a music shop in Geneva and we drove up to the mountain chalet where we were staying and set it all up. There was a lovely little pub about half a mile away from the chalet, it was a great atmosphere, and a nice little country location. Nobody knew who the hell anybody was, and it was just great fun to be there. The lyrics to Mr. Blue Sky are simple and easy to visualise. When the song is playing, you can picture everything that's going on and everybody knows what I'm talking about. It's the thought of, 'Oh, isn't it nice when the sun comes out?' And you know, it really is. 'The sky is blue, wow, what a thing.' It's a simple kid's story." "[Joe Jonas] most recently got matching tattoos with his fiance Sophie Turner - inspired by Toy Story - in October. And on Thursday morning, Joe Jonas debuted his latest permanent ink - a lyric from the 1978 song Mr. Blue Sky by British rock group Electric Light Orchestra. The 29-year-old singer showed off the forearm tattoo - which read: 'Sun is shinin' in the sky There ain't a cloud in sight It's stopped rainin' everybody's in a play And don't you know It's a beautiful day.' He wrote out the song lyrics in the caption and tagged Jeff Lynne - a member of the Electric Light Orchestra. He wrote and produced the song as well. Joe also tagged Winter Stone, an LA area tattoo artist, who inked his arm. The tune Mr. Blue Sky was featured on their seventh studio album Out Of The Blue and released as a single in 1978. Jeff re-recorded the song in 2012 for his album Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra under the name ELO." "Am happy to see that the Electric Light Orchestra has had a bit of resurgence lately thanks to Mr. Blue Sky appearing on the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack" "[Out Of The Blue] is the ultimate realisation of Lynne s vision to carry on where The Beatles left off, containing sparkling pop gems like Turn To Stone, Sweet Talkin Woman and unofficial Brummie national anthem Mr Blue Sky — the Fab Four would be proud" "According to [James] Gunn, the hardest song to acquire [for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2] was ELO s Mr. Blue Sky, with Gunn having to make a personal appeal to Jeff Lynne for its inclusion." "Songs like Mr. Blue Sky, Don't Bring Me Down and Learning To Fly-- the list goes on-- have won Lynne a cherished place in the hearts of pop fans around the world." "The song Mr. Blue Sky enjoyed a revival in recent years, at was the first song in the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Paul Blart: Mall Cop and the television series Doctor Who." "ELO's Mr Blue Sky is one of the world's most popular pop tunes of all time, thanks to its sunny and uplifting vibe and groundbreaking sound. But who wrote Mr Blue Sky and where has it been used in the world of pop culture? Here are all the fascinating facts: Who wrote Mr Blue Sky? Like most ELO songs, bandleader Jeff Lynne wrote this classic. Lynne also produced the song, which was recorded for the band's Out of the Blue album in 1977. The song forms the fourth and final track of the 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' suite, on side three of the original double album, and was later released as a standalone single. What inspired Mr Blue Sky? Jeff Lynne has said that he wrote Mr Blue Sky after locking himself away in a Swiss chalet, and attempting to write ELO's follow-up album to A New World Record. 'It was dark and misty for two weeks, and I didn't come up with a thing,' he told the BBC. 'Suddenly the sun shone and it was, Wow, look at those beautiful Alps. I wrote Mr Blue Sky and 13 other songs in the next two weeks.' The song's arrangement has been dubbed 'Beatlesque', as it has similarities to Beatles songs Martha My Dear and A Day in the Life, and it shares its unusual first four chords and harmonic rhythm with Yesterday. For such an epic song, the song simply follows the concept of a rainy day that comes to an end. What instruments does it use? The song has a prominent use of a cowbell-like sound, which is credited on the album to percussionist Bev Bevan, as that of a 'fire extinguisher.' When the song is performed live, a drumstick is used to strike the side of a fire extinguisher, which produces the famous sound. The song also includes a heavily vocoded voice singing the phrase 'Mr Blue Sky'. A second vocoded segment at the end of the song is often incorrectly interpreted as saying 'Mister Blue Sky', but it is actually saying 'Please turn me over', as it is the end of side three of the vinyl record, and the listener is being instructed to flip it over. How did it perform in the charts? Amazingly, Mr Blue Sky only reached number six in the UK chart in 1978. Even more amazingly, it only reached number 35 in the US! However, it has since become ELO's signature song, and has been one of the most downloaded and streamed songs of the 1970s. What films and TV shows has it been used in? The song has been used in many pop culture moments over the decades, including:
Tom Eames (April 17, 2019 - Smooth Radio website) "Regarded by many as ELO's greatest song, Mr. Blue Sky is a gorgeous update on Beatlesque, '60s psychedelic pop." "It's taken some years for the cognoscenti to give Lynne s tenure with ELO its proper due, but songs like Telephone Line and Mr. Blue Sky are now recognized as unassailable pop classics." Song of the Day: Mr. Blue Sky at Lemonwire. "But in 2014, when he and ELO were persuaded to play their first public concert in decades, it was clear that fans hadn't forgotten about Mr. Blue Sky, Don't Bring Me Down and Evil Woman — and a new generation had discovered them, too." "Mr. Blue Sky and Evil Woman have had a long cultural shelf life." "After a 37-year gap as of 2018, many Chicago-based fans of the Electric Light Orchestra had resigned themselves to enjoying their favorite ELO music through their record collections — or perhaps by catching Mr. Blue Sky on repeated views of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2." "[ELO and Jeff Lynne] finally broke through in the second half of the Seventies with hits like Mr. Blue Sky and The Diary Of Horace Wimp-- exactly the same kind of toytown pop fripperies that fallen short of the charts for The Idle Race." "Throughout the Seventies [Jeff Lynne] created a multitude of Top Ten smashes, including Mr Blue Sky, Roll Over Beethoven, Evil Woman and Livin Thing." "Mr. Blue Sky is quite simple. There's quite a few chords in the verse. But obviously the chorus is very simple. It's just a semitone rundown or a tone rundown or... I can't remember what they call 'em." "Their 1978 Top 10 hit Mr. Blue Sky is comfortably their most-streamed track with 320m plays, followed by 1979's Don't Bring Me Down (82m) and 1976's Livin' Thing (70m)." "I tried my hardest to do [Out Of The Blue] as good as I could and, of course, luckily out of there came Mr. Blue Sky, which was one of me most famous recordings I've ever done. And so I was thrilled with just that, really. Even though I had a lot of other hits off it." "I've got it now, Mr. Blue Sky. I know why they like it now because it's so simple and it's so childlike, anybody can do it." "In recent years, you may have heard his songs popping up on all sorts of soundtracks — from Mr. Blue Sky in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to my personal favorite, Telephone Line, in the movie Billy Madison." "Side Three [of Out Of The Blue is 'Concerto For A Rainy Day,' which muses over the weather's effect on our moods, culminating in 'happy ending' Mr. Blue Sky. Axl Rose is an unlikely fan." "Being a Blues fan, [Mr. Blue Sky has] got to be Birmingham. I m just kidding. Obviously the idea that it's been used to wake up spacemen is amazing, just the fact that someone sent my tune up there. " "There are few perfect pop songs — another is Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys - you've got everything in three and a bit minutes. Mr. Blue Sky is the same. The production is perfect, the arrangement is perfect, and the sound just takes you away. I think Jeff Lynne's a genius. To be able to do everything in just a three-minute song, it's just great talent." "'I knew him [before Free As A Bird] anyway,' says McCartney, slightly mischieviously, 'from when he nicked every Beatles riff on earth. Sorry Jeff!' After saying this, McCartney starts singing a riff from Mr. Blue Sky then adds, 'he know, he knows.' I ask him how Jeff Lynne responds when McCartney says this to him, 'Oh, we just have a laugh,' he insists. 'Everyone borrows.' And then adds, 'But not everyone points it out-- I point it out to him.'" "Mr. Blue Sky (Electric Light Orchestra). This Beatlesque track, the conclusion of 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' from Out of the Blue, wasn t a big hit in the 1970s. Enter Guardians of the Galaxy, it's now Jeff Lynne s signature song." "CPH's announcement reminded me of the great 1977 hit Mr Blue Skies [sic] from Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). The UK was beginning to emerge from a dark recession where inflation was 20% and unemployment 11.5%. It was trigered by the 1974 oil crisis and the working week was reduced to 3 days and coal miners went on strike, causing power cuts and some elderly folks actually died of cold. The ELO ditty came along at the right time, just as Vera Lynn's Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover had done during World War 2 - offering the promise of hope and a better tomorrow. I fleetingly knew a couple of members of ELO, as I grew up in their home town of Birmingham, before embracing the blue skies of Australia in 1974, and saw the band's evolution from the Idle Race, Carl Wayne & the Vikings, then the Move, then the brilliant Jeff Lynne-led ELO. Mr Blue Skies is perhaps their masterpiece." "Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra is a joyous chunk of '70s rock as only ELO's musical genius Jeff Lynne could deliver. But its bouncy rhythms and soaring choruses aren't merely to our liking (or yours) -- they've been scientifically proven to be happiness-inducing. According to analysis of the song's composition, it's the happiest classic rock tune on record. To refresh your memory, here's Mr. Blue Sky: https://youtu.be/aQUlA8Hcv4s Netherlands-based researcher Jacob Jolij developed what he calls the 'Feel Good Formula,' with which he feels it is possible to determine the happiest song on earth. Jolij studied 126 songs from a period of 50 years and surveyed 2,000 people to ask them which songs made them the happiest. His studies were based on earlier findings from the University of Missouri where they found that listening to music while trying to improve their moods did become happier. During his study, Jolij found that to be a 'happy song,' the song needed to have a tempo that differed from the normal pop song, typically in the 150 BPM (beats per minute) range, and it needed to be written in a major key. If not written in a major key, the song needed to use more than three chords. In addition to the music itself, the lyrics for the happiest songs either focus on positive themes or are a bit nonsensical. An initial study revealed that Queen s Don t Stop Me Now was the happiest song, but when the formula was refined, that song moved into second place, with Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra coming out on top, even though Jolij contends that cultural differences may influence the happiest song from place to place. Jeff Lynne wrote and produced Mr. Blue Sky for ELO s Out of the Blue album. The song is the fourth track of the 'Concerto for a Rainy Day' suite. It was included on the third side of the double album and eventually released as a single. In 2012, an animated video directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger featuring animation by University of Southern California students was released on ELO s official website: https://youtu.be/G8dsvclf3Tk Lynne secluded himself in a Swiss chalet to work on the follow up to A New World Record. The weather, which had been misty and rainy finally broke after two weeks to reveal the blue sky and the Alps. Lynne s writer s block also broke and over the next two weeks, he wrote Mr. Blue Sky and 13 other songs. Reportedly, the working title for the song was Thou Shalt Not No. 7, a rather grim title for a joyous song. The song itself has a relatively simple concept: a blue sky appears after a rainy day. It begins with the four chords and harmonic rhythm that it shares with The Beatles Yesterday. One of the noteworthy sounds in the song is what seems to be a cowbell, but is actually a drumstick hitting the side of a fire extinguisher. It also relies heavily on a vocoded voice. At the end of the song, the tempo changes, the lyrics stop and a choir begins singing. Technically, this concerto coda was not part of the song, but rather to signal the end of the suite. The song was a hit, though its performance was perhaps lackluster now that we know it's the happiest of all time -- it to number six on the charts in the U.K. and number 35 in the U.S. Xanadu, Don't Bring Me Down, and Livin' Thing were all bigger hits for ELO. But in the years since Mr. Blue Sky's 1978 release, it has gone on to become one of the most streamed and downloaded songs of the 1970s. It has also been included in many movies and television shows including Dr. Who, Guardians of the Galaxy II, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was also featured during the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics. Several artists have attempted to cover the song and at the 2015 Grammys, Ed Sheeran performed it with ELO." "Flashlight [by Parliament] was almost the song Baby Groot danced to at the beginning of [Guardians Of The Galaxy] Vol 2 [before Mr. Blue Sky was chosen instead]." "'Morning! Today s forecast calls for Blue Skies' heralds the radio voice over at the start of Mr Blue Sky, undoubtedly ELO s most famous song. Jeff Lynne came up with this track after he locked himself away in a Swiss chalet attempting to write the follow-up to A New World Record. Lynne states Mr Blue Sky captured his vision of what ELO was all about. He started with the 'thumping' chords on an electric piano but the sky was foggy. Then, one day, the blue sky returned. 'It was dark and misty for two weeks, and I didn t come up with a thing,' Lynne recalled. 'Suddenly the sun shone and it was, Wow, look at those beautiful Alps. I wrote Mr. Blue Sky and 13 other songs in the next two weeks.' The sessions became the epic double album Out of The Blue that also featured the singles Turn to Stone, Sweet Talkin Woman and Wild West Hero, each becoming a hit in the UK." "ELO'S Mr Blue Sky has been voted the 'happiest song ever' - beating Queen and the Bee Gees to th+ e top spot. The 1978 anthem was among the happiest songs ever released, with a fifth of all respondents selecting it as the ultimate feel good tune. Abba s Dancing Queen, Livin on a Prayer by Bon Jovi and Walking on Sunshine by Katrina also featured in the top 10. The study, which was carried out by Greatest Hits Radio, showed the happiest songs were released in the late 70s, with Abba and Elton John in the top 20. ELO's Jeff Lynne revealed he was 'really chuffed' by the news. He said: 'Thank you for voting for my song Mr Blue Sky as the song that makes you the happiest. I m really chuffed about it, it's great. What a great thing. Thank you so much.' It was revealed 58 per cent of adults said songs that make them happiest are ones released during their youth. [...] The study also saw The Boo Radleys hit Wake Up Boo, Ricky Martin s 1999 number one Livin La Vida Loca and Cyndi Lauper s anthem Girls Just Wanna Have Fun named among the most happiest songs. Meanwhile, 85 per cent of those polled said their happiest year for music bought back nostalgic memories of some of their 'best days and life experiences.' Behavioural scientist and broadcaster Paul McKenna explained: 'We associate the song to good times from the past. To some extent we get transported back there. We begin to create all the neuro chemical changes, and all the happy neurotransmitters that are associated with a certain song that uplifts us, get released again. So, listening to happy songs that we love is very good for our health psychologically and physically.'" "Small British radio station, Greatest Hits Radio had an unexpected spotlight on the results of its listeners poll when it went viral yesterday. A fifth of all respondents voted that Mr Blue Sky by ELO was the 'happiest song' ever. Beating Queen, Elton John, Abba, the Bee Gees and Bon Jovi to the top spot, the 1978 hit came out as the ultimate feel-good tune. Genesis author Jeff Lynne was delighted at hearing the news saying, 'Thank you for voting for my song Mr Blue Sky as the song that makes you the happiest. I'm really chuffed about it, it's great. What a great thing. Thank you so much.' Here at Genesis we are of course fans of all of Jeff Lynne's work as documented in both of his signed limited editions, Wembley or Bust, in which he narrates song-by-song the set list performed at his homecoming concert in 2017, revealing his phenomenal career and The Traveling Wilburys, the official book of the band's adventures. It was revealed 58 per cent of adults said songs that make them happiest are ones released during their youth. Greatest Hits Radio presenter Pat Sharp said: 'It's great to hear that people are listening to the Radio more, and that music is such a mood lifter. Especially in these times of lockdown where we need uplifting and upbeat music in our lives more than ever before.'" "Even if it isn't this cold, damp November morning, then you should still enjoy a classic bit of pop froth courtesy of the students of the RNCM and Jeff Lynne the Electric Light Orchestra... We can all do with a little bit of cheering up at the moment — so why not just click on the link below and enjoy a fantastic rendition of the classic pop song Mr Blue Sky, courtesy of 80 students from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. It will put a smile on your face and a spring in your step this morning for sure... Written by Jeff Lynne it was originally released in 1977 by the Electric Light Orchestra from their album Out of the Blue and made it to number 6 in the UK charts. However, it has since become one of the most popular pop releases ever — played on radio and television just about every time there is a bit of summer sun in the sky. It's since been voted the happiest pop song of all time." "Before heading to Munich, where he intended to record the album at Giorgio Moroder s Musicland Studios in May, Lynne rented a chalet in the village of Bassin, just beyond Lake Geneva in the Swiss Alps. He brought his guitar, and hired a Revox tape recorder and electric piano from a little shop. 'For two weeks, I came up with nothing, and I only had four weeks to write this double album! I was sort of thinking, bloody hell, maybe I can t come up with anything. The weather had been really bad and then one day I got up and it was fantastic, the sun was brilliant and shining, all the mountains were lit up and this mist had gone away. It was gorgeous, and I came up with Mr. Blue Sky. I just kept coming up with songs about 14 in two weeks.' [...] The third side of the LP set is dedicated to the four-part 'Concerto for a Rainy Day,' composed by Lynne from the very literal details of the weather in Bassin, ending with the epic five-minute Mr. Blue Sky, one of ELO s most Beatlesque performances. Lynne sings like both Paul and John, and his smooth guitar solo nods to George. It is quintessential ELO, with huffing cellos, sound effects, tempo changes, multiple vocal lines (including that Mack-corralled choir), prominent Vocoder and lyrics that reinforce the absolute joy of the sun coming out. (Additional trivia... Mr. Blue Sky ends with the Vocoder saying 'please turn me over' to point toward the concluding side four.)" "Jeff Lynne and ELO definitely owe a debt of gratitude to the Beatles for inspiration and sound. This [Mr. Blue Sky] is one of their most Beatle-y recordings, but with added orchestral textures and a plethora of vocoder. There are time changes, tempo shifts and other sonic treats in this recording that make it truly unique." "Just about forgivable, perhaps, if all you knew [of ELO] was such signature hits as Mr Blue Sky (a marvel, nonetheless; at once gratifyingly heavy and perfectly weightless) and The Diary Of Horace Wimp – which is, to be fair, a cloying, clodhopping attempt to repeat the effect; the Happy to Mr Blue Sky's Get Lucky." "What you find out a lot is that when a song won't clear [for a film], you just have to go back to people and ask them again. And eventually, you can get it cleared. Usually, there are a couple of artists I'll have to write a personal letter or email to just to tell them what I think of their music because I don't choose people unless they are really important to the movie. But the hardest of all was [Electric Light Orchestra] Mr. Blue Sky. That was a very difficult clear on Guardians 2. That almost didn't happen." "Muppets house band Dr. Teeth And The Electric Mayhem have performed a version of Electric Light Orchestra's 1977 classic Mr Blue Sky. The kaleidoscopic clip was filmed for the YouTube documentary Dear Earth, which premieres this weekend in the hope of inspiring viewers to make the planet a healthier and more sustainable home. Amongst those taking part are former President Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and SpongeBob SquarePants. [...] Dr. Teeth And The Electric Mayhem - whose current line-up includes Dr. Teeth himself, Animal, Sgt. Floyd Pepper, Janice, Zoot and Lips - first appeared in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, the pilot for the first Muppet Show, in 1975. They've since gone on to perform a number of covers, including versions of Kool & The Gang's Jungle Boogie, Paul Simon's Kodachrome, and King Harvest's Dancing In The Moonlight. Floyd Pepper and Dr. Teeth handle the lead vocals on Mr Blue Sky, before Janis delivers a soulful guitar solo, Zoot adds some sweet saxophone, and it all climaxes with fluffy clouds, butterflies taking flight, singing flowers and more consciousness-expanding colour." "The Muppets have continued their decades-long classic-rock connection with a spot-on cover of Electric Light Orchestra's Mr. Blue Sky. The beloved puppet ensemble's house band, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, covered ELO's 1977 classic as part of YouTube's Dear Earth special, which features musical performances and presentations from climate activists, content creators and other celebrities. The cover also comes with a new video that shows the members of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem performing on set before getting whisked away on clouds and dropped among a bunch of singing, dancing flowers. Zoot, the blue-haired saxophonist voiced by Dave Goelz, rips an impressive talk-box solo in the middle of the song. You can see the video below. Mr. Blue Sky first appeared on ELO's 1977 album Out of the Blue. The double LP peaked at No. 4 in both the U.S. and the U.K., while the single reached No. 6 in the U.K. and No. 35 in the U.S., and has been certified triple platinum by the RIAA. ELO bandleader Jeff Lynne got the inspiration for Mr. Blue Sky while writing Out of the Blue in a remote chalet in the Swiss alps. 'I remember writing the words down,' he told Rolling Stone in 2016. 'I was at a chalet in the mountains of Switzerland, and it was all misty and cloudy all the way around. I didn't see any countryside for the first four days or so, and then everything cleared and there was this enormous view forever, and the sky was blue.' The Muppet Show has had numerous high-profile rock star moments over its 45-year history. They've worked with legends such as Elton John, Prince, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett, Dave Grohl and Ozzy Osbourne, just to name a few." "Few musical groups can survive for decades — but Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem is a special breed. For years (and years, and years), the Muppets' house band has been a consistent source of excellent musical entertainment, and just this week the ensemble shared a reverent cover of Mr. Blue Sky, the classic anthem from Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra. The corresponding music video was featured in this past weekend's YouTube documentary Dear Earth." "According to [James] Gunn, Russian Roulette [by Lords of the New Church] was the first time that he couldn't get the rights to a song he wrote into a 'Guardians' script. That's not to say he didn't have prior challenges though. In the aforementioned Absolute Radio interview, Gunn said that getting Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra into Vol. 2 was a challenge: 'It was letters, and calling, and begging.'"
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