“Suddenly the sun shone and it was, ‘Wow!’”: How ELO’s Jeff Lynne created his masterpiece Mr. Blue Sky - and how a little joke at the end of the song was misheard by millions

Jeff Lynne in 1977.

Jeff Lynne was sitting in a chalet in the foothills of the Swiss Alps when the inspiration for the song that became his biggest hit came to him.

It was April 1977 and Lynne was using the chalet as a retreat to work on songs for the seventh album by his band the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). He was hoping that the spectacular vistas of the Jura Mountains near Lake Geneva might fire his imagination for songs for the new album. But Mother Nature had other ideas.