track

My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - 2016 Remaster

1979Released
3:47

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - 2016 Remaster. By Songfacts®.

This deals with the fleeting nature of fame and how hard it is to stay relevant as an artist. Going "out of the blue and into the black" is when the popularity wanes and the singer fades from memory. Young handled this by adopting a blithe disregard for popular taste, making music however he saw fit.

Young alludes to three specific artists in the lyrics: "Rock and roll is here to stay" - This is the title of a 1958 song by Danny & the Juniors, a vocal group best known for their hit "At The Hop." They proclaim, "Rock 'n roll is here to stay, it will never die." "The king is gone but he's not forgotten" - "The King" is Elvis Presley, who died in 1977, two years before this song was released. "This is the story of a Johnny Rotten" - Johnny Rotten (real name: John Lydon) was lead singer of punk rock pioneers The Sex Pistols. He often seemed hell-bent on self destruction to ensure he would burn out and not fade away, but ended up having a very long and productive career.

Around 1977 Neil Young formed a band called The Ducks that included Jeff Blackburn. The band played for a $3 cover charge in the hip Santa Cruz club environment. "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)" came out of this period and Jeff Blackburn received co-writing credit on the track with Young. Jeff Blackburn recalled to Uncut magazine: "We were old friends going back to the '60s. I was playing in Santa Cruz with John Craviotto and Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) who were a great rhythm section, when Neil ducked into it. That was a great summer. We played about 30 shows with The Ducks, we played every night. It really was a mighty month. Neil and I swapped ideas. We both had material, we had ideas and things came together as we were rocking together pretty good. I had a song with the line, 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It's better to burn out than it is to rust.' Neil liked that and the whole rust thing came from that line - rust never sleeps. Not many people share a credit with Neil Young. It's hard to say why I got one, you'd need to ask Neil. But you never know what he's going to do next."

Top Listeners

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - 2016 Remaster.
GKey
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
127BPM

Album

The album My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - 2016 Remaster is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - 2016 Remaster.
Reprise
© 1979 Reprise Records
℗ 1979 Reprise Records

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists