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Mr. Blue Sky

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Mr. Blue Sky

"Mr. Blue Sky" is a song by the 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 album. "Mr. Blue Sky" was the second single to be taken from Out of the Blue, peaking at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart and number 35 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Promotional copies were released on blue vinyl, like the album from which the single was issued. Due to its popularity and frequent use in multiple television shows and films, it has sometimes been described as the band's signature song.

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 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.

Lynne also said:

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.

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". The song's piano and drum intro is borrowed from the Kinks' 1968 song "Do You Remember Walter".

An alternate account of the song's composition was suggested by bassist Kelly Groucutt's 1983 lawsuit against Lynne, in which Groucutt alleged that he had written the song's middle section, but had not been officially credited in this capacity.

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