![]() He didn't feel that he was touching all the lives that he wanted to with his music. "His main concern was that people listened to his music. Did Jimi ever voice concern that his lyrics were misunderstood? We didn't have the careful analysis that we've had for decades now. He's sharing dreams he's had, how he wants our world to be, some of the experiences he's had… brought across in a poetic way."ĭuring his career, music journalism was still in its infancy. It's about times of then, times of yesteryear, times of the future. "They're very similar to how he is in his thinking. What kind of imagery is in these unpublished songs? What kinds of stories was he weaving? We don't even have the music to those they're just words." "As far as his lyrics go, no one really knows that he wrote 110 songs - more than that, because we unearthed some unpublished songs. "But when Jimi was going to England, he was all excited, telling my dad, 'They're putting this group behind me, I'm off to the big time, I'm going to change the spelling of my name to Jimi, and guess what… they want me to sing!' My dad was like, 'Oh, sheesh! Goodness.' But Jimi said, 'They're all hollering out here, so I'm just gonna holler like the rest of them.' He used to say, 'You can't sing, so it's good you can play guitar.' He was very supportive of him in the guitar arena, but he was just being honest. My dad's idea of singing and what Jimi was doing were two different things. He would say, 'You can't sing' - and my dad was a decent singer. Jimi never thought he was much of a singer. "I'll share a little story about his singing. © ULVIS ALBERTS/EMPĪs you know, we revere Jimi for his guitar playing, but we don't focus on other aspects, like his singing and certainly his lyric writing. Janie and Jimi Hendrix in Seattle, 12 February 1968. He had that same feeling in the studio, covering lights with film to create a mood." The whole idea that you had a third eye, your chakras, how colors affect you - he was very interested in all of that and incorporated it on stage. We have a picture of him where he's holding one of those Penguin books, and it's a science fiction story. What about books? What kinds of things would Jimi read to drawn inspiration? He hadn't really laid the tracks down for how it was going to sound." He'd write down the lyrics, and in a lot of them he'd put in notes of how he wanted the song to go. Now we have 110 songs."įrom what you've been told, were there ever any instances where the lyrics came before the music? That was really life-changing for Jimi - and the world. He really encouraged Jimi to write and not just play cover tunes. He hung out with Chas Chandler a lot - Chas was his manager at one time. Dylan, sure, you can hear the inspiration in his lyrics. You've got Bob Dylan, he loved Muddy Waters, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke - he loved all the old greats. I think he was an admirer of people who could write. "There's a picture he drew as a kid of Elvis Presley, and he drew all the song titles around him. Did he ever talk about any other songwriters as influences? There's some really incredible intuitive insights into his handwriting and who he was."Īs a lyricist, Jimi was very inspired by Bob Dylan. It pretty much describes who he is - that he's creative, he works both sides of his brain, he's extremely intelligent. I know we have that analysis somewhere in our archives. Has Jimi's handwriting ever been analyzed by experts? As you can see in the book, a lot of his lyrics are written on hotel stationary or napkins or anything he could get his hands on. ![]() I used to have very vivid dreams, and he'd say, 'Write them down.' That's what he did, as well. Jimi would tell me to keep a pad and pen next to my bed. "It's when that muse lands or that inspiration comes. ![]() It's always interesting to me to see how songwriters would pen lyrics on things like hotel stationary and pieces of paper bags backstage. Published by Backbeat Books, an imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation. From Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Lyric Book (c) 2012 by Experience Hendrix, LLC. ![]()
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