Performer: Jimi Hendrix
Songwriter: Jimi Hendrix
Original Release: Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and
More
Year: 1970
Definitive Version: Live at Woodstock, 1999
This song’s original name
was Instrumental Solo. At least that’s the name that was given on the Woodstock
soundtrack before a Hendrix release put a public name to the song that closed
his legendary set and the movie performances.
It also is the finale of
what in my inexpert opinion is the greatest 25 minutes in recorded rock
history. That’s greatest, as in best ever, not as in favorite. Care to argue
with me? Fine. Top this: An amazing Voodoo Child (Slight Return) seguing into
Stepping Stone, the epic Star Spangled Banner, a rousing Purple Haze, a
blistering solo and this ethereal tune—25 minutes nonstop with the exception of
a slight pause in the Banner just before the “O’er the land of the free”
phrase.
About the time I first saw
Woodstock and thus heard this song was when I was going for my drivers license
in 1980. Because of my June birthday, I was one of the youngest kids in my
class, so I didn’t even have my learner’s permit until my sophomore year ended.
Mike had been driving since March, for example.
I could take my in-class
drivers’ ed—where we watched all the gross movies that showed you what most
assuredly will happen if you ever drive drunk—in school before I turned 16, but
I couldn’t take my in-car drivers’ ed till summer vacation. When you’re on
summer vacation, the last thing you typically want to do is get up at 8 in the
morning to go to school. I felt like I was in remedial class with the burnouts,
but, hey, whatever it took to get my drivers license.
I don’t remember the
instructor’s name, but I definitely remember the songs that were on the radio
all the time—particularly Coming Up by Paul McCartney and Wings and Magic by
Olivia Newton-John. And all I wanted to do was get home so I could throw on my
Hendrix. As far as the class itself went, the best memory I have is the day we
drove to Marysville—to get some highway practice—and stopped at the Dairy Queen
for a shake.
Now Upper Arlington being
UPPER Arlington, most kids got new cars when they turned 16. It wasn’t when I
turned 16 and it wasn’t new, but I did get a car in fall 1980. Mom decided she
wanted to get a new car and give me her old one—a 1971 VW squareback. We called
it The Fart, because, well, that’s what it was. It was a real piece of crap.
Actually, it was kind of
cool if you were a car guy, which I’m not. The engine was in back, beneath the
station wagon back that included a handy fold-down seat for piling up stuff for
college. The trunk was up front.
It might have been The Fart,
but it was mine. It afforded me far more freedom than my bike gave me. Now I
could go see Mike when I wanted. I could drive to school and not have to worry
about Mom not getting me and my friends because she was “sick.” I could drive
to lunch. I could drive to Timeout on OSU’s campus to play this new game called
Pac-Man. I could drive to Clippers games. All I had to do was pay for my gas,
and back then, it was at a shockingly high buck a gallon. At least The Fart got
decent mileage.
It got me to and from high
school, then later work, then later Wabash. It got me through four good years,
and it led to some adventures that I'll recount at a later time. When it was time, I passed it along to my sister the summer after her 16th
birthday. She had it another four years before it unceremoniously died along
the highway in Michigan. And so it goes …
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