Electric Light Orchestra – Mr. Blue Sky

Two Weeks Of Clouds, Then Fourteen Songs In A Burst

Released as a single in January 1978 from the album Out of the Blue, “Mr. Blue Sky” peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart and number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song forms the fourth and final track of the Concerto for a Rainy Day suite on side three of the original double album. Despite its modest chart performance, it has become ELO’s signature song, described by Ultimate Classic Rock as their greatest track. The album sold ten million copies worldwide by 2007 and earned triple platinum certification in the United States. For a track that closes a conceptual four-song suite about weather, this was an unlikely path to becoming one of rock’s most beloved songs.

The single was pressed on blue vinyl to match the album’s color scheme. By 2025, the song had generated over 1.8 billion streams globally across all platforms, becoming one of the most downloaded and streamed tracks from the 1970s. In 2015, a survey of 2,000 UK adults named it Britain’s favorite uplifting song. Jeff Lynne re-recorded it in his home studio for the 2012 compilation Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, though the new version omitted the orchestral outro. The track appeared in films like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Megamind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, introducing it to generations who weren’t born when it was recorded.

Jeff Lynne wrote the entire Out of the Blue album in three and a half weeks during spring 1977 while staying in a chalet in Bassins, Switzerland, near Lake Geneva. He had retreated to the Jura Mountains after finishing ELO’s massive American tour supporting A New World Record, with expectations sky-high for the follow-up. For two solid weeks, clouds and mist blanketed the mountains. Lynne stared at nothing, unable to write a single note. Then one morning he woke to brilliant sunshine, the mist cleared, and the Alps appeared in full glory. He wrote thirteen songs in the next two weeks, starting with this one. The arrangement borrowed its piano and drum intro from the Kinks’ track “Do You Remember Walter” while harmonically sharing unusual chord progressions with Beatles songs like “Yesterday” and “Martha My Dear.”

Producer Jeff Lynne recorded the track at Musicland Studios in Munich over two months with the core band of drummer Bev Bevan, keyboardist Richard Tandy, and bassist Kelly Groucutt, plus violinist Mik Kaminski. Session musicians from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra moonlighted on the sweeping string arrangements. The vocoder sings a melody in the intro that reappears in orchestral form during the outro, and at the very end it says please turn me over, an instruction to physically flip the vinyl to hear side four. Lynne layered his own vocals to create the illusion of a full choir, a technique he’d perfected across multiple albums. The prominent cowbell-like percussion drives the entire track, giving it a mechanical insistence that contrasts beautifully with the organic joy in the melody.

The song appeared on Out of the Blue, ELO’s seventh studio album and their commercial peak. The double album featured five singles that all charted in the top twenty, including “Turn to Stone,” “Sweet Talkin’ Woman,” and “Wild West Hero.” The Concerto for a Rainy Day suite began with “Standin’ in the Rain” and followed a conceptual arc from storm to sunshine, with this track serving as the triumphant finale. The album artwork featured a spaceship shaped like a jukebox, designed by Hipgnosis, and the stage show during the subsequent tour involved the band rising from inside an actual spaceship prop complete with lasers and dry ice. Lynne later admitted he preferred working 14 hours a day in the studio to performing inside that claustrophobic UFO.

Weezer covered the song in 2019 with actor Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things appearing in a video that paid homage to the original’s 2012 animated clip directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger. Lily Allen recorded a version as a bonus track for her debut album in 2006. The song was prominently featured during the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Birmingham City Football Club plays it before every home match because they’re nicknamed The Blues. Jeff Lynne’s ELO performed it with Ed Sheeran at the 2015 Grammy Awards, creating the most Shazamed moment of the entire telecast despite ELO never having won a Grammy throughout their career.

Forty-eight years after its release, the song still sounds like pure sunshine converted to sound waves. Jeff Lynne sat in a Swiss chalet waiting for inspiration while fog pressed against the windows. When the sky finally cleared, he didn’t write about struggle or triumph. He wrote about a beautiful day and the simple relief of clouds parting. Sometimes the greatest songs come from the simplest moments, and sometimes you have to sit through two weeks of nothing before lightning strikes and thirteen songs pour out in fourteen days. The clouds always clear eventually. You just have to wait for them.