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Purple Haze

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"Purple Haze"

Single by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
from the album Are You Experienced?

B-side

"51st Anniversary" (U.S.)

"The Wind Cries Mary" (U.S.)

Released

March 17 1967

June 19 1967

Format

vinyl record (7")

Recorded

11 January, 1967

Genre

Psychedelic rock, acid rock

Length

2:50

The Jimi Hendrix Experience singles chronology

"Hey Joe"
(1966)

"Purple Haze"
(1967)

"The Wind Cries Mary"
(1967)

For other meanings of Purple Haze, see Purple Haze (disambiguation).

"Purple Haze" is a song recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It also appeared on the US release of their 1967 album Are You Experienced?. "Purple Haze" is often cited as one of Jimi Hendrix's greatest songs, and first international hit. For many, it is his signature work. Purple Haze became Hendrix' second single after his manager Chas Chandler heard him playing the riff backstage and quickly arranged for him to record and release the song. The single peaked at number three in the UK but only number 65 in the US, where it was released in June 1967, a month after "Are You Experienced?" and three months after the UK single. In March 2005, Q magazine ranked "Purple Haze" at number one in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The Rolling Stone magazine placed the song at No. 17 in their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The song is commonly believed to refer to Hendrix's experiences with a similarly-named batch of LSD produced in 1966 by Owsley Stanley. The commercial pharmaceutical form of LSD, made by Sandoz under the trade name 'Delysid', came in small purple gelatin capsules. (In a 1967 BBC session, Hendrix recorded a cover version of The Beatles' "Day Tripper" in which he shouts, "Oh, Owsley, can you hear me now?" during the climactic guitar solo.) Another story is that the Tritone discussed below triggered his synaesthesia to show him a Purple Haze and others believed that the song's name was derived from a strain of marijuana, called "purple haze." At another point, Hendrix said he took the phrase "purple haze" from Night of Light, a science fiction novel written by Philip José Farmer that he was reading at the time (the phrase appearing in Farmer's book is "purplish haze" [1].) Hendrix claimed 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. The song has a distinctive tritone interval which appears in the intro. The guitar plays Bb octaves while the bass plays E octaves. Such dissonance was unusual in popular music of the time. Dubbed guitar track played through octavia, a gadget that transfers notes one octave higher, can be heard during the outro. (The song's lyric 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky has been widely misheard as 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy. However, in some live performances, as a joke, Hendrix clearly and unmistakably sang 'Scuse me, while I kiss that guy. One of these appears on the album Voodoo Child : The Jimi Hendrix Collection [Disc 2]. and the box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

"Purple Haze" in other media

"Purple Haze" has been covered by a variety of other artists, from Ozzy Osbourne to the Kronos Quartet to Québécoise artist Carole Laure, and has also been featured in many films, television shows, and commercials. Some of the more notable and/or unusual appropriations of the song over the years include:

A Pepsi TV commercial (first broadcast during the 2004 Super Bowl) in which the young Jimi Hendrix is shown purchasing a soda from a Pepsi vending machine. As he opens the bottle, his eye is drawn to an electric guitar in a nearby pawn shop, and the famous opening riff of the song begins to play. He then glances at a Coca-Cola machine located across the street in front of an accordion store, and the opening riff is played again, this time on an accordion. The commercial subsequently cuts to the caption: "Whew! That was close!"
The episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy focusing on cells featured a parody of this song (with an accompanying music video) called "Cellular Haze."
The film Awakenings, in which a doctor uses the song to revive a catatonic patient.
The film Apocalypse Now, in which a sailor pops a purple smoke grenade and says, "Purple Haze!".
Comedian Wayne Federman's traveling routine, in which he plays "Purple Haze" on an electric ukulele.
East Carolina University football games, where the song is traditionally broadcast over the stadium speakers as the team enters the field.
The British comedian Bill Bailey once played a version of the song on his show Is It Bill Bailey? in which he mumbled all the lyrics except "sky", claiming that just because he doesn't know the words it does not mean he cannot rock out.
Comedian Bill Cosby sang alternate lyrics to "Purple Haze" as "Hooray for the Salvation Army Band!" on his 1968 album of the same name.
Comedian Bill Hicks frequently used the opening riff as he arrived on stage, as seen in his live DVD:revelations.
The opening guitar riff is heard in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie video game. The riff is repeated throughout the level that resembled a bar.
In an episode of Disney's "Dinosaurs" where Robbie Sinclair discovers a plant with marijuana-like effects, Earl Sinclair's boss, Mr. Richfield, is seen in his psychedelically tricked-out office singing the song.

Trivia

According to Jimi Hendrix, the song's colorful imagery came to him in a dream. "I dream a lot and I put a lot of my dreams down as songs" in a 1969 interview.
When Hendrix originally wrote the song, the title he came up with was "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves".
The lyric "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" can be seen painted on the wall inside one of the girls' restrooms at Hendrix's alma mater Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. The school also sells T-shirts printed with the words "purple haze".
The song was originally slated to be titled "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves". It was later renamed after the Experience made its first studio recording of the track.
Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, reportedly used this song as the basis for his solo on the popular 2006 single Dani California.
In the Simpsons episode Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?, Homer says, "Now excuse me while I kiss the sky."

Also, the Simpsons have referred to the song another time, with one show being titled 'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky in Season 14. The title refers to Lisa's new found interest in being an astronomer.
American comedian Wayne Federman plays a version of "Purple Haze" on his electric ukulele (through a Marshall amplifier). The clip is shown on Comedy Central.
In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Purple Haze" at number one in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The Rolling Stone magazine placed the song at No. 17 in their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
The Archive of Misheard Lyrics, located at www.kissthisguy.com, took its domain name from "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy.".
In one episode of the show; "My Wife and Kids", star and comedian, Damon Wayans, played the riff and solo of this song on a stratocaster, and eventually, burned, licked, and did other guitar tricks that Jimi Hendrix performed, all in order to prove to his son, on "how to play like Jimi"
Purple Haze is a popular brand of cannabis. Most say the original strain no longer exists and that the term is just used to markup prices of marijuana that happens to be purple.
Purple Haze is a popular bar in Bangalore, India.
In the Method Man song "How High" he sings, "Scuse me as I kiss the sky".
During the memorable "$240 worth of pudding" sketch on an episode of The State on MTV, Tom Lennon says "now if you will excuse me while I kiss the sky," before rubbing his buttocks on the pile of pudding.
The Loughborough University Ultimate Frisbee team named themselves Purple Haze in honour of the Jimi Hendrix song.
The Traveling Wilburys song End of the Line, mentions Purple Haze.
The Stevie Nicks song Bombay Sapphires mentions the song in the line "It's like Purple Haze".
"'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was used as a catchphrase by Married... with Children's Bud Bundy character.

The Text-based MMO, Kingdom of Loathing, makes a reference in one of their areas. After receiving the effect "Half-Astral" you end up wandering through purple haze with no way of knowing where you might go next.
In the Japanese series: Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken: Ougon no Kaze (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, series 5) , the character Pannacotta Fugo uses a stand named Purple Haze. The stand emits a purple mist during gameplay of the same name.
The short story "The Fire Unquenchable" by Alice and Claude Askew, published in 1914, has a passage in which the phrase "purple haze" occurs twice in a description of a hallucinatory experience: "My body was tingling, the blood in my veins seemed to run like liquid fire..the purple haze before my eyes seemed to envelop everything..as if I was staring into illimitable space..,I was conscious of shafts of fire shooting across that void, long streaks of light, like falling stars or meteors." Later he has a vision of a beautiful woman whose eyes "shone with the very agony of life...I shall carry the impression of them to my grave."
Purple Haze is also known as an acne soap for children.
Purple Haze is the name of an Abita Brewing Company raspberry wheat beer. Like the song, this beer has also inspired the name of the Ultimate Frisbee team at Louisiana State University.
Purple Haze is the name of the robotics team from the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (Austin Texas). It is in reference to LASA's school color of purple. LASA Robotics competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition as team 418.