Bob DiPiero Reveals the Story Behind "Blue Clear Sky"

(recorded by George Strait)

"The Hitmen of Music Row"'s Bob DiPiero.

"Blue Clear Sky"
Written by Bob DiPiero, John Jarrard & Mark D. Sanders

I went to see the movie "Forrest Gump." About halfway through the movie, Forest has a dialogue where he is talking about his girlfriend, Jenny. The dialogue went something like this...

"Jenny was gone, then all of a sudden, out of the blue clear sky, she was back."

Well, of course it's backwards. The real term is "out of the clear blue sky," but it grabbed my attention. The next day I was writing with John Jarrard and Mark D. Sanders. I told them about this backwards idea and we wrote "Blue Clear Sky" about how love seems unfindable and then out of the blue, you find it.

We made a recording of it and sent it to George Strait, who we knew was looking for new material. Sometime later my phone rings. It's GEORGE STRAIT CALLING ME! At first I thought it was a joke, but no. He said something along the lines of, "I'm from Texas and in Texas we say 'clear blue sky.' Don't you think it ought to be "Clear Blue Sky"?

Well, I was caught off guard, so the first thing out of my mouth was to tell him about going to see "Forrest Gump" and how Forrest had said the line.

George responded by saying, "Well...do you think there are many gumpsters out there?"

I didn't know what else to say, so I said, "Yeah. I do think there are a lot of Gumpsters out there."

He said, "Okay then, I guess we'll be Gumpsters then. Adios."

"Blue clear Sky" went on to become a four-week No. 1 record and the album of the same name became the CMA album of the year.

Thank God for Forrest and George.