Concerto For A Rainy Day
Side three of the release is subtitled "Concerto for a Rainy Day", a four track musical suite based on the weather and how it affects mood change, ending gloriously with the eventual sunshine and happiness of "Mr. Blue Sky". This was inspired by Jeff Lynne's experience while trying to write songs for the album against torrential rain outside his Swiss Chalet.
"Standin' in the Rain" opens with a haunting keyboard over a recording of real rain, recorded by Jeff Lynne just outside his rented studio. Also heard at the 30 second point of the song marking the beginning of The Concerto is thunder crackling in an unusual manner voicing the words "Concerto for a Rainy Day" by the band's keyboardist, Richard Tandy. At around the 1 minute mark the staccato strings play a morse code spelling out ELO. The band used the song to open their 1978 Out of the Blue concerts.
"Big Wheels" forms the second part of the Concerto for a Rainy Day suite and continues with the theme of the weather and reflection followed by the more optimistic third part "Summer and Lightning". Apart from its inclusion on the Out of the Blue album, the song has never appeared on any compilation or B-sides until 2000, when Jeff Lynne, the song's composer, included it on the group's retrospective album Flashback.
"Summer and Lightning" is the third song in the "Concerto for a Rainy Day" suite. The raining weather theme is continued throughout the track though the mood and lyrics are more optimistic.
"Mr. Blue Sky", an uplifting, lively song celebrating sunshine, is the finale of "Concerto for a Rainy Day". It is the only piece from the Concerto to be excerpted as a single.
Read more about this topic: Out Of The Blue (Electric Light Orchestra album)
Famous quotes containing the words rainy day, rainy and/or day:
““Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.”
—Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)
“This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)