The real reason Jeff Lynne regretted ELO’s anthem ‘Mr Blue Sky’
Don’t you just hate it when you produce a brilliant piece of work? It’s so annoying! People will come up to you and give you praise for your efforts, and the feeling is such a crushing disappointment, right? It’s awful to have people big you up for how marvellous you are, and if you end up repeating your success on several occasions, then the accolades are going to get tiresome. Imagine going through that every day for the rest of your life – what a truly horrifying prospect. Jeff Lynne knows all about this, and it just so happens to be for a piece of work he despises.
Electric Light Orchestra’s rise to fame had been a slow climb, but by the mid-1970s, the band had released a couple of studio albums that were well received in Face The Music and A New World Record, and both of these albums produced several hit singles that Lynne ought to be proud of such as ‘Evil Woman’ and ‘Livin’ Thing’. For the most part, it would seem that he was content with the successes of these, but as any artist who is passionate about their craft would want to do, his desire pushed him to develop the band’s sound further on subsequent releases.
Despite reaching the UK top ten on four occasions prior to 1977, the band’s creative and commercial peak was yet to arrive, and it would be with their seventh studio album, Out of the Blue, that ELO truly hit their stride. Producing a total of five singles, the album was their most ambitious to date in terms of its expansive production sound, but it also possessed a certain pop sheen that made it prime for commercial success.
Among these singles was ‘Mr Blue Sky’, a song that has gone on to become ELO’s most recognised hit despite only reaching number six in the charts upon its initial release. Written in the Swiss Alps during a bout of bleak weather, Lynne penned this effortlessly catchy ditty as a means of brightening the mood, and its vibrant mood is sure to wash away any semblance of a bad mood for the listener, provided you like glammed-out prog-pop, that is.
At least, this was Lynne’s intention with the song. Most listeners will be able to glean this feeling from even a cursory listen, from the chugging wake-up call of the opening riff to the sunshine pop harmonies that are spread throughout, but by his estimation, the end product was much weaker than he’d initially hoped for it to be, and he’s always been stunned by its popularity.
“I’ve always been amazed at how popular ‘Mr Blue Sky’ is,” Lynne proclaimed. “At the time, I remember mastering it as a single in England and thinking, ‘I wish it sounded better than that.’” But why exactly was the song a disappointment for him? According to his perfectionist’s critique, he continued by saying: “The speakers were so flat-sounding in the cutting room where they cut the disc that it misled me into thinking it wasn’t sounding very good. But when I heard it finished and mastered, it sounded great, so all those worries were gone.”
Of course, his eventual concession that the end product wasn’t as bad as he’d initially thought stands more in line with the public’s perception of the song, and while he may have been in a funk about how it sounded originally, ‘Mr Blue Sky’ is the sort of song capable of ushering in positivity and brightening any mood. Perhaps after he’d disconnected himself from the arduous process of writing and recording the track, he was able to allow it to work its magic on him.
