Bluebirds over the Mountain

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

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, #53 in Canada's RPM chart, #33 in the United Kingdom and #9 in the Netherlands. It reached #36 on the Record World US national Top 40 and was most popular on playlists in a southwestern circle of centers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, and Phoenix, just below the top 10 (just outside top 20 in San Francisco); similarly in midwestern cities Columbus, Indianapolis, Madison, the Twin Cities, and Detroit; and averaging slightly lower in the top 20 across Boston-Springfield, Detroit, and into the South at Memphis and Birmingham. 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 what would come to be known as the "Tate-LaBianca Murders".

Other covers

• Dick and Dee Dee covered the song on their 1963 album Young and in Love.^[5]
• Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters with Chrissie Hynde covered the song on Plant's 2017 album Carry Fire.^[6]

References