After a couple of weeks of themes vaguely related to the natural world I thought I’d take a little more inspiration from it for this week. Instead of looking at sea level, though, this time I’m looking upwards and my theme is the sky. I know of quite a few songs with sky or a variant in their title, so this one might be good for a couple of weeks. In fact, looking at what I have had to leave out of this set I’m sure of that! So, for week one, here are my choices of sky songs.

If I can I like to get things off to an upbeat start, and this one certainly fits that bill:

As you can see, that is ELO playing Mr Blue Sky for a concert organised by the BBC in 2014, and it is a fantastic performance. There are several videos of them playing this in shows from around that time, but for some reason I was drawn to this one. The song was a track on the band’s seventh album, Out Of The Blue, which was released in October 1977 and reached #4 in both the UK and the US. It was a double album, and is estimated to have sold more than 10m copies worldwide: quite an achievement for a premium priced record. This was the second single taken from the album, in January 1978, peaking at #6 in the UK and #35 in the US. Over the years it has come to be regarded as the band’s signature song, which might go some way towards explaining its high sales: more than 3m in the US and 1.8m in the UK. And in case you were wondering, the violin player is Chereene Allen: she is classically trained and has played around the world with many orchestras and rock and pop acts, including the likes of Annie Lennox, Robbie Williams, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Kylie Minogue, etc etc.

I played Elton John a few weeks ago, but felt like doing it again. This one goes right back to his early days, and is still in my view one of his most beautiful songs. There are numerous versions on YouTube of live performances, but even though it is audio-only I wanted to play you the original album version, as the harpsichord makes it something rather special:

I don’t know why the sound depth changes about two minutes in, sorry, but it seems to be that way on the record too! Skyline Pigeon was, as the video shows, a track on Elton’s debut album, Empty Sky, which was released in the UK in June 1969, but didn’t make the chart. It wasn’t released in the US until January 1975, by which time he had already become a star, and its chart position there of #6 reflects that, I think. It wasn’t released as a single, despite getting a good deal of radio airplay when the album first came out – which is when I first heard it and fell in love with it. Elton re-recorded it with a piano accompaniment during the sessions for his Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player album: it wasn’t included on the album but was issued as the B-side to the single of Daniel, and has appeared several times in that form since then. I still prefer the original for its simple beauty, and Elton himself has said that this was the first song that he and Bernie Taupin had been excited about writing.

If you’ve seen my posts before you’ll know that this next guy is one of my all time favourites. He has several sky songs, which gave me a difficult decision. Although I’ve played it before I chose to go with this one:

Though that performance was in November 2021, Jackson Browne originally released his Late For The Sky album in September 1974, and this was, of course, its title track. The album peaked at #14 in the US but wasn’t a hit here in the UK – he had to wait for his next album, The Pretender, before he broke the ice here. It is still, to my mind, one of his best albums, probably because it is where I first heard one of the greatest songs ever: Before The Deluge. In 2020, the album was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the US Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Recording Registry: it appears that I’m not the only one to rate it highly.

After two successive songs of beauty, I’m going for the hat trick with my next choice:

You may have heard the tragic story of Nick Drake, but have you listened to the beauty of his music? If not, I think you should, as you’ve been missing out, as this song proves. I’ve also played this one before but the temptation to do it again was just too great. I’ve told you a bit of his story before, but to recap: Nick only lived to 26, and died in 1974 from an overdose of the antidepressant drugs he had been prescribed. The coroner recorded a verdict of “Acute amitriptyline poisoning – self-administered when suffering from a depressive illness.” His family, including his sister, the actress Gabrielle Drake, have always refused to accept that he committed suicide, and I’d prefer to believe them, though some of his friends at the time were of the view that ‘he had given up on life.’ Either way, his is a sad story. Nick released just three albums during his lifetime: this is a track from the second of those, Bryter Later, released in March 1971 (not 1970, as the video says, though it was recorded then). I love this video: it is a great fit for Nick’s beautiful, delicate music. He sold very few albums while alive, and suffered severe stage fright that curtailed his career as a live performer. However, since his death there has been a resurgence of interest in him and his music, with the release of several albums of unreleased songs, demos and outtakes. One of these, Made To Love Magic, from 2004, even made the UK albums chart at #27, and produced two top forty singles. All three of his albums have been awarded Gold Disc status here in the UK, based on accumulated sales over the years. Many of his songs have been used in tv shows and movies, and even adverts. There is also an excellent book about him, Deeper Than The Darkest Sea, written by Trevor Dann, which offers a sympathetic appraisal of his life and music. I commend him to you.

Time for today’s final song. This is another outfit I’ve played before – on many occasions – but if I can’t include one of the most influential bands of all time there must be something wrong! I think you might know this one:

As I’m sure you knew, even before the video showed you, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was a track on The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, which was released in May 1967. It was, of course, a #1 in the UK, the US, and in many other countries too. To date it has sold more than 32m copies worldwide, including on first release and then with subsequent re-releases: in 1987 (UK #3, US #1), in 2009 (UK #5), and in 2017 (UK #1, US #3). 11m of those sales were in the US, 5.4m in the UK – for a market of our size that is a phenomenal figure. None of the tracks from the album was issued as a single, but Elton John recorded a cover version of this in 1974, on which John Lennon played, and took it to #1 in the US Singles chart and #10 in the UK. Frankly, I think the original is far better, which I would also say of the version recorded by The Flaming Lips with Miley Cyrus. And as for William Shatner’s effort, it is so utterly atrocious that it almost becomes funny. Almost…

Well, that’s all for this time. As I said earlier there are many others I could have played you, so unless anything earth shattering happens in the news to give me a new prompt I’ll play some more of these next Tuesday. Have a great week, and I’ll see you again soon 😊