"Mr. Blue Sky" is a song by English rock group Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), featured on the band's seventh studio album Out of the Blue (1977). Written and produced by frontman Jeff Lynne, the song forms the fourth and final track of the "Concerto for a Rainy Day" suite, on side three of the original double LP. "Mr. Blue Sky" was the second single to be taken from Out of the Blue, peaking at number 6 in the UK Singles Chart and number 35 in the United States. The song was played as a wake-up call to astronaut Christopher Ferguson on Day 3 of STS-135, the final mission of Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Inspiration [edit][]
In a BBC Radio interview, Lynne talked about writing "Mr. Blue Sky" after locking himself away in a Swiss chalet and attempting to write ELO's follow-up to A New World Record:
| “ | It was dark and misty for 2 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 2 weeks. | ” |
The song's arrangement has been called "Beatlesque", bearing similarities to Beatles songs "Martha My Dear" and "A Day in the Life".
Vocoded sections [edit][]
The song features a heavily vocoded voice singing the phrase "Mr. Blue Sky". A second vocoded segment at the end of the song was often interpreted as "Mister Blue Sky-yi", it is actually "Please turn me over" as it is the end of side three, and the listener is being instructed to flip the LP over. This was confirmed by original keyboardist Richard Tandy, who did confirm the actual lyric to members of the Showdown ELO fan list, it has also been confirmed by Jeff Lynne on 3 October 2012 on the 'One Show'.
Music Video [edit][]
A music video has been released in late 2012 via the official ELO website and YouTube, a colorful animation directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger with animation sequences designed and animated by University of Southern California students.