Mercury Rev’s ‘Blue Skies‘ closes Hijack, Episode 3 with the right amount of strange
American indie rock, chamber pop band Mercury Rev’s ‘Blue Skies‘ was that cool version of the classic song playing over the end credits of the latest episode of the Apple TV series Hijack this week — Hijack, Season 1, Episode 3, “Draw a Blank“.
It is a cover of the original Irving Berlin-composed song the iconic American composer wrote for the musical Betsy way back in 1926.
A song with a cute story attached to it as well as, during opening night of the musical, the audience loved ‘Blue Skies’ so much, they encored the song until the show’s star performer Belle Baker had performed it 24 more times.
The experience must have thrown the singer off her game, however, as, at one point during her many encores, she forgot the lyrics.
That left Irving Berlin himself to join in and sing them from where he sat in the front row of the theater.
‘Blue Skies’ has since been recorded hundreds of times by a plethora of singers.
But Mercury Rev’s quirky version of the Irving Berlin song definitely adds a sense of surrealism to the end of Hijack, doesn’t it?
When did Mercury Rev record ‘Blue Skies‘?
The track was released by the alternative rock band in November, 2019 on the hugely expanded version of their fifth studio album All is Dream, which originally came out in 2001.
A re-release of a hit album that went from just 10 tracks in 2001 to its 4-CD edition expanded re-release version featuring 53 songs for a total of 3 hours and 30 minutes of Mercury Rev music playtime.
The song was featured on Disc Two of the release and was one of 20 “B-sides, outtakes and demos”, most of which had never been released by the American band before.
Listen to Mercury Rev’s ‘Blue Skies‘ as heard over the Hijack ending in the video and via the band’s All is Dream album on Spotify.
You can watch Hijack via Apple Plus TV.