Kissing The Sky

In 2003, Rolling Stone published its 100 Greatest Guitarists issue.

No surprise, topping the list was Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townsend wrote a gorgeous tribute, a reflection on that lightening flash made flesh for not quite 28 years.

I found this YouTube upload of an MTV production sometime ago, and have long thought to do an entry on it. It’s not a great video on it’s own, but what the MTV crew managed to do was capture so much of what made Jimi special, and what made him an icon for the era: the creativity, the destruction, the raw sexuality, the power, the rebellion, the poetry, the skewed beauty attached to a new musical form tethered to the black blues, while simultaneously reaching for melody and dissonance.

“Are You Experienced” is my favorite Hendrix tune, for it captures all of these strange and beautiful qualities, or as Pete Townsend writes, “What he played was fucking loud but also incredibly lyrical and expert. . . It was a high form of eroticism, almost spiritual in quality. . . . He made the electric guitar beautiful. It had always been dangerous, . . . Jimi made it beautiful and made it OK to make it beautiful.”

“Are You Experienced” reflects all these things, and this little video offers some of Jimi’s most magical moments.

Are You Experienced?

If you can just get your mind together
Uh-then come on across to me
Well hold hands and then well watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea.

But first, are you experienced?
Uh-have you ever been experienced-uh?
Well, I have.

(Well) I know, I know, youll probably scream and cry
That your little world wont let you go
But who in your measly little world, (-uh)
Are you tryin to prove to that you’re
Made out of gold and-uh, cant be sold.

So-uh, are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced? (-uh)
Well, I have.

Uh, let me prove it to you, yeah.

Trumpets and violins I can-uh, hear in the distance
I think they’re callin’ our name
Maybe now you cant hear them,
But you will, ha-ha, if you just
Take hold of my hand.

Ohhh, but are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.