Purple Haze: History and Key Facts

"Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967, in the United Kingdom.

The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Eastern modalities, shaped by novel sound processing techniques. Because of ambiguities in the lyrics, listeners often interpret the song as referring to a psychedelic experience, although Hendrix described it as a love song. It was included as the opening track in the North American edition of the Experience's debut album, Are You Experienced (1967).

"Purple Haze" is one of Hendrix's best-known songs and appears on many Hendrix compilation albums. The song featured regularly in concerts and each of Hendrix's group configurations issued live recordings. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is included on lists of the greatest guitar songs, including at number two by Rolling Stone and number one by Q magazine. In 2004 and 2010, the former ranked it at number 17 on its “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list, re-ranking it to number 250 in the 2021 edition.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Purple Haze by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.