14: Hey You With the Pretty Face

14. "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra {#35; 6/78} [Video: Mr. Blue Sky (Official 2012 Video).]

From the time I first started formulating the HondoJoe Top 200 until this finalized version, no song climbed higher from its initial listing than this one. I originally had it at song #104. But then I'd hear it and think, "No, that's got to be higher." So, I'd move it up. And I kept doing that again and again and again until it finally ended up all the way here at #14. 

Part of that is because "Mr. Blue Sky" has become the quintessential ELO song. During the London Olympics, when they were playing songs by famous English artists at the Olympic stadium, when it came time for ELO the song they chose was "Mr. Blue Sky." When Jeff Lynne performed at this year's Grammy Awards show, the song he sang was "Mr. Blue Sky." (It has also been used frequently in movies and movie trailers in recent years.)

"Mr. Blue Sky" wasn't the biggest ELO hit, but it is the song that has endured in the public consciousness more than any other ELO song. And why not? It's a damn good song. It's peppy and upbeat and happy and fun. It's a cheerful, joyous, wonderful song!

An image from the "Official 2012" Mr. Blue Sky video.

That being said, there is a bit of an annoying story that goes with the "Official 2012" video that I linked to above. In 2012, Jeff Lynne released a "new" greatest hits album, titled "Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra." Unlike other ELO greatest hits collections, of which there are many, this one was actually "new." That's because Jeff Lynne re-recorded all of the hits, making them sound so close to the original recordings that it would be very hard to differentiate them for the average fan.

Why did he do this? According to Jeff Lynne he did it because with the advances of technology and such, he could make the old songs sound better than the original versions.

However, there are cynics who say he meticulously re-recorded his old songs so that when they get used in movies, movie trailers, or commercials, he can use the "new" recordings of the songs so he doesn't have to pay any money to his original band mates for the use of the original songs. Yes, Jeff Lynne wrote and sang all of those songs, but it still seems a little skeevy to me.

*************************

The Electric Light Orchestra had 25 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Of those songs, remarkably only five are on the HondoJoe Top 200, and this is the highest one of those. And now, because no one asked for it, here is a ranking of those 25 songs on the HondoJoe scale:

1. "Mr. Blue Sky" Hondo #14 {#35; 6/78}

2. "Do Ya" Hondo #23 {#24; 2/77}

3. "Eldorado Overture/Can't Get It Out of My Head" Hondo #40 {#9; 12/74}

4. "Don't Bring Me Down" Hondo #64 {#4; 8/79}

5. "Sweet Talkin' Woman" Hondo #144 {#17; 2/78}

6. "Turn To Stone" {#13; 11/77} (Gotta love that "fast-talking" section!)

7. "Twilight" {#38; 10/81} (Excellent drum work by Bev Bevan!)

8. "Strange Magic" {#14; 3/76} (Great dreamy ballad.)

9. "Telephone Line" {#7; 6/77} ("Hello. How are you? Have you been alright through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights?")

10. "Last Train to London" {#39; 12/79} (Disco music at its finest.)

11. "Hold On Tight" {#10; 7/81} (Simultaneously wins and loses points for having a verse in French.)

12. "Roll Over Beethoven" {#42; 4/73} (The perfect marriage between rock and classical!)

13. "I'm Alive" {#16; 5/80} (Like a first-person version of "Born To Be Alive.")

14. "Four Little Diamonds" {#86; 10/83} (A fine "she done me wrong" song.)

15. "Showdown" {#53; 12/73. Then again: #59; 8/76} (Used perfectly in the Bill Murray/Woody Harrelson bowling movie Kingpin.)

16. "Shine a Little Love" {#8; 5/79} (I still wonder if "Don't Bring Me Down" would have made it to #1 if it had been the first song released off of the "Discovery" album instead of this nice disco number.)

17. "Daybreaker" {#87; 5/74} (A bouncy little instrumental song from The Belly-Button Album "On the Third Day.")

18. "Livin' Thing" {#13; 10/76} (Great violin work by Mik Kaminski.)

19. "Evil Woman" {#10; 11/75} (One of ELO's most well-known hits, but not my favorite.)

20. "Calling America" {#18; 2/86} (ELO's final charting hit. It's okay.)

21. "Rock 'N' Roll Is King" {#19; 6/83} (Almost an exact rip-off of "Hold On Tight," but without the French verse.)

22. "It's Over" {#75; 10/78} (A nice enough song, but there are more than half a dozen other songs from "Out of the Blue" that would have been better to have released as a single.)

23. "All Over the World" {#13; 8/80} (It's a fine song, but I'm just not much of a "party" person.)

24. "Confusion" {#37; 10/79} (Much like "It's Over," I felt there were many other songs on the album that would have done much better if they had been released.)

25. "Xanadu" (with Olivia Newton John) {#8; 8/80} (Come on, it's an Olivia Newton John song, not an ELO song.)

COMING UP NEXT: That's why you need a fire extinguisher in every room.