“I’m proud”: the track Jimi Hendrix thought everyone got wrong
Today, the idea that Jimi Hendrix was a working musician, one with fans and a touring schedule, who you could have gotten an autograph from at the stage door of his concerts, is mind-boggling. He’s a figure more deity than man. One might as well imagine meeting the archangel Gabriel at Tescos, weighing up whether he feels like paella or chilli tonight.
It’s true, though; Hendrix was a musician just like any other of the time. Sure, people were aware of his earth-shaking talent, but his fanbase still had strong positive and negative opinions on his music, the way they have for any popular figure today. Today, basically everything the man’s released is fawned over and rightly so (more or less,) but for one reason or another, one particular cut of his apparently didn’t make the grade in the eyes of his fans.
What makes it even more depressing is that this was the Electric Ladyland classic ‘Burning Of The Midnight Lamp’ we’re talking about. Hendrix’s attempt at Sgt Pepper-style psychedelic pop filtered through his inimitable cosmic blues. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also heightened by the Sweet Inspirations on backing vocals. However, this collaboration between the greatest guitarist ever and Aretha Franklin’s backing vocalists was hailed by some as the worst song he’d ever released.
Those are not my words, by the way. Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek quoted Hendrix in their book Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy as saying, “Some people say this is the worst track we have ever done. I think it is the best. Even if the technique is not great, even if the sound is not clear and even if the lyrics can’t be properly heard, this is a song that you often listen to and come back to.”
Perhaps best is a little bit strong, but one can imagine Hendrix being particularly proud of what he achieved here. It’s world’s apart from the hypercharged blues howl of Are You Experienced?, built around a chiming harpsichord hook intertwining with his wah-wah infused strat playing. There are real songwriting chops at play here, and then you get to the lyrics that deal with Hendrix’s depression and loneliness with alarming frankness.
It’s staggering, and what’s equally staggering was that it first saw life as a B-side. It was attached to ‘All Along The Watchtower’ before being released as its own single in Europe, then added to Electric Ladyland afterwards. Perhaps that departure is the reason it was so strangely received by Hendrix’s fanbase. It’s not just different from his previous work. It’s a deeply, nakedly personal work that has more in common with Frank Ocean’s work on Blonde than anything by Clapton.
Folks tend to react negatively to that level of openness if they’re not used to it. Which is strange because, as Hendrix elaborated in Shapiro and Glebbeek’s book, the song is nothing if not universal. “There are some very personal things in there. But I think everyone can understand the feeling when you’re travelling that no matter what your address, there is no place you can call home. The feeling of a man in a little old house in the middle of a desert where he is burning the midnight lamp… you don’t mean for things to be personal all the time, but it is.”
If anything, one’s connection with Hendrix’s music deepens when one views him not as a deity but as a man. One who felt everything everyone else feels, who channelled that into transcendence. Some may feel uncomfortable with that level of openness and intimacy, but that’s just a sign that you’re reaching them in a way they’re not used to. It’s a sign that you’re creating art that draws upon the relatable but reaches for the divine. Hendrix spent his whole life reaching for that, and I firmly believe that he wanted those who really heard and felt his music to do exactly the same.
