We all know that Birmingham isn’t shit. We’ve spent nearly 20 years telling people, showing the world, and often undermining our case. In our book we lay out the ineffable reasons why we say ‘Birmingham: it’s not shit’ and attempt to eff it.
Birmingham, as the Jane Austen quote misused by broadsheet feature writers says, has “something direful in the sound”: we are painted as dull, as boring. And particularly by a media based in London who definitely can’t see the point of any train that comes here at all, let alone one that does it 20 minutes faster.
Even ELO genius Jeff Lynne is described on Wikipedia as “a native of Birmingham [with] a flat Brummie accent” (from a Daily Telegraph review).
How odd then, that his song, the song that most defines the city, was voted the ‘happiest song ever’ in one of those polls that companies commission for publicity. It ran away down the avenue with a fifth of the vote. How odd then, that everyone loves the record but shows disdain for the town that made it. How odd then, that Jeff is responsible for some of the brightest and euphoric music ever to come from anywhere. He also worked on some Ringo Star solo material; which at least can make you laugh.
Mr Blue Sky has been chosen on Desert Island Discs many times, including by cyclist Chris Boardman, TV writer Russell T Davies and M&S CEO Stuart Rose. It was in the UK’s 200 most-streamed songs on Spotify every single day in July 2020. It was also joint second in the official chart of 2021’s ‘best driving song’. (Oh OK, it was a PR survey for an insurance company.)
The record is the closing track of side three of the Electric Light Orchestra’s LP Out of the Blue, the one with the spaceship on the cover. The four tracks there are what they call Concerto for a Rainy Day, said to explore how the weather affects mood. Nothing it seems affects mood more than Mr Blue Sky, though.
A Dutch neuroscientist prostituted his knowledge for Argos’s own-brand stereo company Alba and created a formula that worked out what the ‘most feel-good song’ was. If you’re interested in his formula it is:
60 + (0.00165 * BPM – 120)2 + (4.376 * Major) + 0.78 * nChords – (Major * nChords)
and the winner (based at least on research of songs already described as ‘feel good’ by Dutch radio listeners) was of course Mr Blue Sky by ELO. If you’re interested in what Dr Jacob Jolij said about his formula it is, “I had to cook up a formula. My client had asked me to come up with a formula for PR-purposes. So, how to get from the ‘formula’ to the list of ultimate feel-good songs? I had little to do with that actually.”
Like a stopped clock, these PR maniacs have to be right sometimes, and they also need two fully charged AA batteries shoved in their traps and their knobs twisted until their hands point in the right direction, but there’s no denying that Mr Blue Sky is incredibly loved. The single sold over four million copies worldwide, which is amazing when you consider that if you just stand around in Brum you will hear it at least once a week for free. How odd, that you can hear a song so often and still find it joyous.
For half of the city it may be because it’s played just before the team comes out at St Andrews: so do we love it because we associate it with hope and anticipation? Yes, but watching Birmingham City play football is mostly like fighting a war. It’s more anticipation for 90-plus minutes of mostly boredom alleviated by terror, hope that the queue for pies at half time won’t be too long, or resignation that here comes Jermaine Pennant about to become the first professional footballer in an ankle tag. Yes, it made him relatable to the fans and was a change from most of the team playing like they had a ball and chain, but, still, it’s not the bright blue future the song talks about.
Non-blues fans don’t hold a grudge about it, even though Jasper Carrot named his dog after it. The ELO karaoke night — ELOke “the songs of ELO crucified by drunks” — that we organised at the Sunflower Lounge finished with no audience, everyone on stage singing Mr Blue Sky together. It is a song that unites people.
Jeff wrote Mr Blue Sky “after locking [himself] away in a Swiss chalet” to write some songs. There was a period of poor weather, and then a nice day: “Everybody knows what I’m talking about,” he has said, “it’s the thought of ‘oh, isn’t it nice when the sun comes out’.” After listening to and reading many interviews with the Shard End songwriter, his flat Brummie accent sounding like home and his calm self-depreciation charming everyone he talks to, it’s clear that Jeff Lynne doesn’t really focus too much on what a song’s words are about. The chords, the melody, and even most of the recording are done before the lyrics, which he admits to finding hard to write. “It was dark and misty for two weeks, and I didn’t come up with a thing,” he wrote, “Suddenly the sun shone and it was, ‘Wow, look at those beautiful Alps.’” Had it been another shitty day we might have got a song cursing the complete lack of anything to do in Switzerland if it’s raining, the joy of a large Toberlone, or the inside of the house’s state-mandated nuclear bunker.
In almost every interview Jeff will be asked about how Mr Blue Sky came about, and in every one he will say that he had to write some songs for the new double LP. In every one he will be asked about the F to Dm chord progression that the verses ‘share’ with The Beatles’ Yesterday, and in every one he will say that “yeah, it’s just a simple melody” and tell us it was a song he wrote with ‘posh chords’. In every one he will detail how pretty much everything was in his head before he started to construct the sound, but still praise the work of late keyboardist Richard Tandy (it’s his voice on the vocoder, the voice of Mr Blue Sky) and drummer Bev Bevan (it’s him playing the studio’s fire extinguisher that makes the clanging sound). Every time we delve deep we find there are no real hidden depths, or if there are they are so hidden that even Jeff doesn’t really know where they are. “A lot of people ask me what my songs mean and I have no idea”.
I suspect that Jeff has no problem with people making up their own meanings. No-one, including Jeff, knows why, in the chorus of Don’t Bring Me Down, the backing vocalists sing ‘Groos’, it was just a placeholder noise. The song was recorded in Germany and ‘groos’ is close to the German word meaning ‘greetings’ so he left the word in the lyrics. But because it was meaningless people sang ‘Bruce’ instead when singing along at gigs. Jeff Lynne just went with it and joined in: he doesn’t care what it means. Can you imagine Jimi Hendrix giving up and singing “Excuse me while I kiss this guy”?
Because it means nothing, it can mean anything, and become anything. Mr Blue Sky has become a holiday camp 20 miles north of Hull, countless yachts, a pale ale, an eventing horse, a Belgian mattress company, and the high point of the soundtrack of such films as The Magic Roundabout (2005), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
It soundtracks every promotional video of Birmingham, all of which start with the hazy fog over the Bullring and then move on to a montage of canals and gleaming grade-one office space: and it’s still impossible to hate. It even made a choreographed kids dance in Victoria Square — the Commonwealth Games handover ceremony — not embarrassing. There is something Brummie in the hope after adversity.
Birmingham is always changing, going forward, being quietly awful in many ways, but the sun comes out and it can produce beauty like Jeff Lynne produced Mr Blue Sky: without being able to explain how it’s done. That’s why I always play the song at the end of the night, because the night will go away, and it’s a reason why Birmingham’s not shit and I’ll remember it this way.
Come and join us on Blue Sky btw.
Great article. Made this Brummie smile broadly on a snowy day