“Blue Jay Way” is the name of a George Harrison song from The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour album. George wrote this song on August 1, 1967 in a house he rented in Los Angeles on a street named Blue Jay Way. He was waiting for his Derek Taylor when he came up with the song, “There’s a fog upon L.A. / And my friends have lost their way”. The house is located high in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Sunset Boulevard, which affords panoramic views of Hollywood and much of the Los Angeles Basin.

To the best of our knowledge, here’s a Google street view of the house George stayed at on 1567 Blue Jay Way. (google photo below shows the wrong address)

According to George: “Derek Taylor got held up. He rang to say he’d be late. I told him on the phone that the house was in Blue Jay Way. And he said he could find it OK… he could always ask a cop. So I waited and waited. I felt really knackered with the flight, but I didn’t want to go to sleep until he came. There was a fog and it got later and later. To keep myself awake, just as a joke to pass the time while I waited, I wrote a song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way. There was a little Hammond organ in the corner of this house which I hadn’t noticed until then… so I messed around on it and the song came”.

Here’s the hallway of the house where the Hammond organ was located and a photo of the actual Hammond George played to write the song.

The organ remains in the house to this day. It is no longer playable – the owner reports that the last time he plugged it in, it starting smoking – but it is an interesting artifact nonetheless.

The city eventually had to spray paint Blue Jay Way on the curb because the street sign has been stolen so many times.

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