Bluebirds over the Mountain

"Bluebirds over the Mountain"
Single by The Beach Boys
from the album 20/20
B-side "Never Learn Not to Love"
Released December 2, 1968
Format Vinyl
Recorded September 29, 1967; November 14, 1968
Genre Hard rock[1]
Length 2:51
Label Capitol
Writer(s) Ersel Hickey
Producer(s)
The Beach Boys singles chronology
"Do It Again"
(1968)
"Bluebirds over the Mountain"
(1968)
"I Can Hear Music"
(1969)

"Bluebirds over the Mountain" is a song written and recorded in 1958 by Ersel Hickey, later covered by artists such as The Beach Boys and Ritchie Valens.

Hickey's original recording of the song peaked at #75 on the Billboard pop chart and #39 on the Cash Box chart. Ritchie Valens' cover version was released on his eponymous 1959 album following his death. A 1962 recording by The Echoes hit #112 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles survey and was a top 20 hit on Chicago's WLS.[2]

The Beach Boys version

"Bluebirds over the Mountain" was covered by The Beach Boys and released as a single on December 2, 1968 with the B-side "Never Learn Not to Love".[3] The song features Mike Love on lead vocals and it also features Ed Carter on guitar.

The single peaked at #61 on the Billboard pop chart in the United States and at #33 in the United Kingdom and went to #9 in the Netherlands. It reached #36 on the Record World national Top 40 and went into the top 20 in Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis and Columbus. It was subsequently included on the group's 1969 album 20/20.

The "B-Side" of this single, "Never Learn Not to Love", was written by infamous cult leader and murder instigator Charles Manson. Dennis Wilson was friends with Manson for a brief period of time prior to the "Tate-LaBianca Murders" as they would later be referred to.

Other covers

References

  1. "Lindsay Planer review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2011-04-29.
  2. WLS Silver Dollar Survey, November 17, 1962
  3. Badman, Keith. The Beach Boys. The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band: On Stage and in the Studio Backbeat Books, San Francisco, California, 2004. ISBN 0-87930-818-4 p. 232
  4. Dick and Dee Dee, Young and in Love Retrieved May 2, 2015


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