A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts "Bruce!" . However, according to liner notes, he is actually saying a made-up word "Groos". This is similar to a German word for "greeting", Gruß possibly referring to the Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott the group would have heard while recording the album in Munich. However, after the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as Bruce that the band actually changed the lyrics and began to sing the word as Bruce.
The song is dedicated to the NASA Skylab space station, which reentered the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on July 11, 1979.
A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts "Bruce!" . However, according to liner notes, he is actually saying a made-up word "Groos". This is similar to a German word for "greeting", Gruß possibly referring to the Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott the group would have heard while recording the album in Munich. However, after the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as Bruce that the band actually changed the lyrics and began to sing the word as Bruce.
The song is dedicated to the NASA Skylab space station, which reentered the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on July 11, 1979.