"Mercury Blues" is a song written by K. C. Douglas and Robert Geddins in 1949, and first recorded by Douglas. The song, originally titled "Mercury Boogie," pays homage to the American automobile, which ended production in 2010.
The song has been covered among others by the Steve Miller Band (1976, on their album, Fly Like an Eagle), David Lindley (1981), the Finn Pave Maijanen (1987), Alan Jackson (1993), Meat Loaf (2003) and Dwight Yoakam (2004). Lindley's version, from his 1981 album El Rayo-X, peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Meat Loaf's version appears as a hidden track at the end of his 2003 album Couldn't Have Said It Better. Dwight Yoakam's version appears on his 2002 boxed set, Reprise Please, Baby, and later on his 2004 compilation album, Dwight's Used Records. More recently, a lively, truly blues version appeared on Jackson Browne's "Love Is Strange" (2010), backed by David Lindley.
Rights to the song were purchased by the Ford Motor Company, which used it for a television commercial for Ford trucks (albeit with the lyrics changed to "Crazy 'bout a Ford truck").
Read more about Mercury Blues: Alan Jackson Version
Famous quotes containing the words mercury and/or blues:
“The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“The blues women had a commanding presence and a refreshing robustness. They were nurturers, taking the yeast of experience, kneading it into dough, molding it and letting it grow in their minds to bring the listener bread for sustenance, shaped by their sensibilities.”
—Rosetta Reitz, U.S. author. As quoted in The Political Palate, ch. 10, by Betsey Beaven et al. (1980)