Riptide Magazine

Kates Tearin' in the Purple Haze

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So Katesy's "fruity purple filter" inspired us to look into the lyrics of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze a bit further. Unfortunately, our supply of LSD was a little low, so we journeyed through the Internet instead. There's some wild ideas about the meaning of the lyrics that's for sure. Apparently the song was going to be called Purple Haze. Jesus Saves. That it's not about drugs. One dude said it's about an alien encounter! Here's what good ol' Wikipedia had to say:

"Purple Haze" is a song written in 1966 and recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and released as a single (Hendrix's second) in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It appeared on the US release of their 1967 album Are You Experienced and on subsequent re-releases of the album. "Purple Haze" has become one of the "archetypical psychedelic drug songs of the sixties" and is often cited as one of Jimi Hendrix's greatest songs, and for many is his signature song.

Reportedly, the song came into being after his manager Chas Chandler heard him playing the riff backstage and suggested that he write lyrics to go with it. There is some dispute about the lyrics: supposedly written in the dressing room of the Upper Cut Club on Boxing Day, 1966, Chandler claims that the lyrics were never cut in any way (though he admits that this was done on general principle with Hendrix's lyrics), while Hendrix stated that the original song contained much more text. Hendrix himself denied the drug relation of the song claiming it to be merely another love song. He said that the line "What ever it is, that girl put a spell on me" is the key line to the lyrics.

"I dream a lot and I put a lot of my dreams down as songs," Hendrix said in a 1969 interview with the New Musical Express, "I wrote one called 'First Around the Corner' and another called 'The Purple Haze,' which was all about a dream I had that I was walking under the sea."The term "purple haze" has been used to refer to LSD, due to the form sold by Sandoz, called Delysid, which came in purple capsules. The phrase itself appears in print as early as 1861, in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, chapter 54: "There was the red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black..." Although, Hendrix himself stated that the song was partially in reference to a sci-fi story.

Finally (and back onto bodyboarding) a reminder for you to regularly cast your eyes over to the HB Bodyboards TV channel for more cool flicks from the guys.

Enjoy!