30. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Are You Experienced"

 


We've had some Hendrix albums that we liked and some that we didn't quite care for, but I am happy to report that this album, the Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut, is absolutely fantastic and I love it.

There were initially two versions of the album, one released in the UK on Track records and one in the US on Reprise, with different track listings.  Since Rolling Stone specifically cited the Track version, let's use that one.  Now, of course, Hendrix is known and revered for his guitar playing and everybody is right, he's doing some wild shit on guitar that would go on to influence a whole generation or multiple generations, but there were two things that really stood out to me when I listened back to this for the first time in I'd say 30 years, the songwriting and the drumming.

I don't think I even realized that Hendrix wrote all the songs on the Track version (and everything on the Reprise version except "Hey Joe," which was released as a single in the UK but wasn't on the album).  Some of these songs are not just jukebox staples and rock legends; they're also just damn good songs.  "Are You Experienced," the title track, has a lovely, winding melody that sits on top of absolutely mental psych-rock base with backwards guitars and drums, just a wild song, with impressionistic lyrics that hint at altered states of consciousness:

If you can just get your mind together
Then come on across to me
We'll hold hands, and then we'll watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea

But first, are you experienced?
Or have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have

At the end, Jimi says "Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful," but c'mon, we all know it's about LSD.  "Fire" is a brilliant piece of funk-rock that shows off the second element I was talking about, Mitch Mitchell's jazz-inspired drums, almost Keith Moon-esque on a lot of this album.  

"Purple Haze," one of Hendrix's most famous songs, hell, one of rock's most famous songs, wasn't even on the 1967 Track release, but was on the American version.  It's commonly assume to be about a drug experience:

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things, they don't seem the same
Acting funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

(A humorous sidenote - that last line has been so often misheard as "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" that a book of mishead lyrics (often called "mondegreens") was publihsed with that title.)  Hendrix, for his part, said it wasn't about drugs at all, but was inspired by a dream he had.  OK.

Honestly, this album was a surprise to me.  I was not looking forward to listening to it but then really enjoyed it.  Hendrix had one of those distinctive sounds that was just so Hendrix, but I forgot how solid a lot of the songs are.  

Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.

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