Electric Light Orchestra is best known as the band that Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne started to sound like The Beatles. Seriously, look it up, their original intention was to pick up where "The Beatles had left off". However, that doesn't disqualify all the great material that the band would put out during its career. It's actually a pretty nifty idea if you think about it: put together a group with a traditional rock arrangement as its basis, then add in classical instrumentation like bowed strings. While this had been done before in music, most of those classical musicians were not permanent members of the bands that they worked with, but rather, hired studio musicians. Although, on this piece, not only are there orchestral instruments, but also synthesizers, most notably a vocoder, which essentially allows for the keyboard player to "sing" through his synth. This particular song was penned by Jeff Lynne at the end of a two-week slump, during which he had a case of writer's block. However, he claims that one day he opened his windows to see the Swiss Alps bathed in sunlight, which inspired him to write "Mr. Blue Sky" along with thirteen more songs for the band's next album.

Know any good orchestral rock songs?