"Mr. Blue Sky" is a song by the Electric Light Orchestra, featured on the band's seventh studio albumOut of the Blue. 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 album. "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 US Billboard Charts. Due to its popularity and frequent use in multiple television shows and movies, it has sometimes been described as the band's signature song.
Inspiration
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: The song's arrangement has been called "Beatlesque", bearing similarities to Beatles songs "Martha My Dear" and "A Day in the Life" while harmonically it shares its unusual first four chords and harmonic rhythm with "Yesterday".
Arrangement
The arrangement makes 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 now iconic sound. Describing the song for the BBC, Dominic King said:
Lots of Gibb Brothers' vocal inflexions and Beatles' arrangement quotes. 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.
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 "Mr. Blue Sky"; 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 Jeff Lynne on 3 October 2012 on The One Show.
Critical reception
's Donald A. Guarisco considered "Mr. Blue Sky" a "miniature pop symphony" and a "multi-layered pop treat that was a pure Beatles pastiche", saying that "the music divides its time between verses that repeat the same two notes to hypnotic effect a la 'I Am the Walrus' and an effervescent, constantly-ascending chorus that recalls". Guarisco also pointed other references to the Beatles such as "the staccato bassline recalls the chorus of 'Hello Goodbye' and pounding piano lines and panting background vocals recall the midsection of 'A Day in the Life. Billboard Magazine described the beat as "catchy" and said that the song builds from a "thumping intro" to a "harmonic operatic" ending.
re-recorded the song and other ELO tracks in his own home studio in 2012. The resulting album, , was released under the ELO name.
Music video
A music video was released in late 2012 via the official ELO website and YouTube, a colourful animation directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger with animation sequences designed and animated by University of Southern California students.
