The Hook: From a distinctive guitar lick to one of the most misquoted song lyrics of all time, "Purple Haze" endures as perhaps the most popular song the Jimi Hendrix Experience released.
Year Released: 1967
Album: Are You Experienced?
Writers: Jimi Hendrix
Stats: Q magazine ranked "Purple Haze" at number-one in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Rolling Stone placed the song at number-17 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Background: It's generally thought that the lyrics to "Purple Haze" were inspired by Hendrix's experience on a batch of LSD with the same name in 1966. However, he went to great lengths to say that acid had nothing to do with the song, claiming at various points that it was drawn from a dream he had in which he was walking under the ocean, surrounded by a purple haze; and that the phrase "purple haze" came from Night of Light, a science fiction novel written by Philip Jose Farmer that he was reading at the time. Hendrix also claimed at other times that the song was about love, explaining that the line "whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me" was the key to the meaning of lyrics.
Under the Covers: "Purple Haze" has been covered by a wide range of musicians since its release -- including Ozzy Osbourne, Frank Zappa, Winger, The Cure, Dion, Sting and Paul Rodgers.
Trivia: The most misheard line in "Purple Haze," "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky," was turned into the title of a 1995 book about misunderstood lyrics -- Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy.
