Was Jeff Lynne from E.L.O. ( Electric Light Orchestra) looking at this view?
Or this one?
Or this one?
Eleven stops out of Nyon on the Nyon-St Cergue train line there is a village called Bassins. Like many of the villages up in the Jura it is pretty. It has fountains galore in the centre with obligatory summer hanging baskets, a church with immaculately kept grounds, a pottery, and old houses, barns, converted and otherwise.
What you always find high up in these villages is a great view down the valley and Bassins is no exeption. If you look one way across the fields you get more villages. Look down the hill and you get views over the lake and across to Mont Blanc. On a clear day, these views can be stupendous, in winter, even more so, especially when there is lots of snow on the Alps.Anyway,whatever time of the year it was, the view obviously inspired Jeff Lynne when he stayed in a chalet in Bassins back in the 70s, as he wrote Mr Blue Sky and other songs for the "Out of the Blue" album here.
I did try to discover exactly which chalet it was that he stayed in (see sleeve notes below) to take a photo from the same spot. So I sent a few emails off to various places, but I never got an answer.
No matter. Even though the song is over 30 years old, when the sun comes out the words still ring true today and when you are up in Bassins (or anywhere in this area to be honest) it is just gorgeous. You can see what he means.
Pic taken from another village not far from Bassins.
These photos don't really do it justice, I'm sure there are much better pics but it gives you an idea of what it's like. You can see that a bit further down the hill nearer Nyon, even on the main road you get a great view. This pic below is taken from the car with Mont Blanc in the background, and then the next pic is down by the lake at the end of the same day.
All together now " Sun is shinin' in the sky, There ain't a cloud in sight. It's stopped rainin' .....etc " dum dee dumHere are the notes taken from from the Out of the Blue sleeve notes website outlining the background to the song and album.
"A Jeff Lynne masterpiece and one of the finest albums ever recorded, 'Out Of The Blue' began life in a Swiss chalet overlooking the picturesque village of Bassins in the mist and rain of the Jura Mountains. Immediately after ELO's 'A New World Record Tour' ended in April 1977, Lynne left for Switzerland determined to compose enough new material for a double album. The singer-songwriter and producer had elevated ELO to global superstardom with the release of 'A New World Record' during 1976 and expectations of their record company, critics and ELO's millions of fans were higher than ever. "Jeff Lynne: "I rented this little chalet in Switzerland, in the mountains just beyond Lake Geneva. I rented this gear from a little shop in a village, a little music shop, with a Revox tape recorder, an electric piano - I had my guitar there - and just sat there to try and write. For two weeks, I came up with nothing - and I only had four weeks to write this double album! I was sort of thinking, 'bloody 'ell, maybe I can't come up with anything'. The weather had been really bad and then one day I got up and it was fantastic, the sun was brilliant and shining, all the mountains were lit up and this mist had gone away. It was gorgeous and I came up with 'Mr. Blue Sky'. I just kept coming up with songs then, y'know? They just came real quick and I came up with about fourteen in the two weeks after the first empty two weeks."