Blue Jay Way (3:53)

“Blue Jay Way” is a song written by George Harrison; it was first recorded and released by The Beatles on their Magical Mystery Tour album and EP in 1967.

The name of the song comes from an actual street, high in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Sunset Boulevard, which affords panoramic views of Hollywood and much of the Los Angeles basin. It is reached by following a rather complicated route, which is all the harder to navigate on a foggy night — thus creating the backdrop for the opening lines of the song: “There’s a fog upon L.A. / And my friends have lost their way”

According to Harrison: “Derek Taylor (Beatles publicist) got held up. He rang to say he’d be late. I told him on the phone that the house was in Blue Jay Way. And he said he could find it OK… he could always ask a cop. So I waited and waited. I felt really knackered with the flight, but I didn’t want to go to sleep until he came. There was a fog and it got later and later. To keep myself awake, just as a joke to pass the time while I waited, I wrote a song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way. There was a little Hammond organ in the corner of this house which I hadn’t noticed until then… so I messed around on it and the song came.”