'The Umbrella Academy?' Netflix show uses 54-year-old song by SWFL singer. He had no idea

Jerry Dycke didn’t know what was happening.

Suddenly, inexplicably, people started streaming his 54-year-old song on YouTube. Thousands of people.

And they were leaving glowing comments, too.

“This is now my favourite song,” one person wrote. “It’s so sad and good.”

Another person said this: “This song made me cry like child.”

Everybody kept mentioning some TV show called “The Umbrella Academy,” but Dycke had never heard of the thing.

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“I said, ‘What the hell is that? I don’t understand,’” the 82-year-old singer-songwriter says. “That’s how I found out about it.”

Now, of course, Dycke knows all about “The Umbrella Academy,’ the hugely popular Netflix show involving a dysfunctional family of superheroes. He’s even watched an episode — the one featuring his song “Come In Mr. Lonely," co-written with Kansas lyricist Larry Habluetzel.

The Fort Myers resident doesn’t know how his song ended up on the current season of "The Umbrella Academy." No one from Netflix or his licensing company, BMI, contacted him about it, he says. But he’s glad for such huge exposure this late in his career.

Royalty checks from Spotify and YouTube should be coming later this year, Habluetzel says.

The sad ballad has reached nearly 550,000 streams on Spotify and YouTube, including 30,000 on his original YouTube post from 12 years ago. That post had just 600 views before season 3 of “The Umbrella Academy” premiered in late June, Dycke says.

“At my age, it’s kind of an ego thing,” he says. “It’s crazy.”

Writing 'Come In Mr. Lonely'

Even crazier: The song was never even a single. It was just a B-side to another song on vinyl — a Bobby Darin cover called “Things.”

And “Come In Mr. Lonely” never cracked Billboard's Top 100 songs when it was released in 1968, either.

“The song’s been in hibernation for 50 years,” says co-writer Habluetzel.

Dycke says he loved the song's “clever lyrics,” which were inspired by Habluetzel’s own loneliness at the time.

“I was a lonely guy, you know,” Habluetzel says. “The song was inspired by being a lonely college guy.”

Habluetzel, 79, took that sadness and put an exaggerated version of it into “Come In Mr. Lonely.” Like many of his songs, he started with the title and went from there.

“I wrote it in 10 minutes,” says the Overland Park, Kansas resident. “It just flows out of you when you feel creative.”

Dycke worked on the song’s melody, on and off, but didn’t complete it until about 1967 at the famous Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn. — the same record studio that once recorded Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.

Dycke and groundbreaking producer Sam Phillips were looking for a B side to Dycke’s first Sun Records single, “Things.” Dycke says he finished writing the melody in about 10 minutes.

“I sat down at the piano and I finished it right there,” he says. “We recorded it. And Sam said, ‘Gosh, that’s a hit song. Maybe we should be promoting this side.’

“And when he said a hit song, I didn’t know he meant 54 years later (laughs).”

A late-career bump on 'The Umbrella Academy'

Dycke has been making music since the 1960s, including his five-year stint at Sun Records (1967 to 1972). He never had any hits there, though.

Those came later when he moved to Nashville and saw three of his songs break into the Top 100 on the Billboard charts: "I Never Said Goodbye,” “Daddy Played Harmonica” and “Beethoven Was Before My Time.”

Still, “Come In Mr. Lonely” has been his biggest song in decades. Dycke — who sang it accompanied by session musicians and back-up singers — only wishes it had happened a sooner in his career. He used to perform all over Southwest Florida, but he’s cut back a lot in the last few years.

“I wish I’d had this publicity when I was still working,” Dycke says. “It would’ve been nice. Now I’m almost totally retired.”

This isn’t even the first time the song has had national exposure. It was previously used over the end credits for the 2017 movie thriller “A Crooked Somebody.”

But there’s a world of difference between the popularity of that movie and “The Umbrella Academy.” Season three of the TV series racked up 124.5 million hours in just its first week on Netflix, according to Variety.

“I can’t believe how many people watch this ‘Umbrella Academy,’” Dycke says. “My God!”

"Come In Mr. Lonely" is featured at the end of episode eight as a wedding reception winds down and people chat, dance or — in the case of the character Number Five — drunkenly "sing" the song's lyrics onstage.

Dycke feels like he’s in good company in season three’s song-packed soundtrack, including music by Billy Idol, Bonnie Tyler, The Cure, Iggy Pop and Queen.

“They use a lot of people’s music on there,” Dycke says. “Matter of fact, the only person I’d never heard of was me (laughs)!”

Never heard of Jerry Dycke until now? You can learn more about him on his website, jerrydycke.com, or stream his songs on YouTube and Spotify.

Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. Email him at crunnells@gannett.com or connect on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), Twitter (@charlesrunnells) and Instagram (@crunnells1).

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Netflix show 'Umbrella Academy' features song by Florida's Jerry Dycke