School of Rock - Tuesday 2/23 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience / Purple Haze

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Tonight’s song was released in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the album Are You Experienced.

Jimi says it was inspired by a dream where he was walking under the sea. In the dream, he said a purple haze surrounded him, engulfed him and got him lost. It was a traumatic experience, but in his dream his faith in Jesus saved him.  At one point, Hendrix wrote the chorus as "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves," but decided against it. 

He was doing plenty of drugs at the time but insisted the song’s lyrics  had nothing to do with drugs.  I don’t know, I think drugs played more of a role in this song than he believed!

One of the most misheard lyrics ever, was "Scuse me while I kiss the sky" interpreted as "Scuse me while I kiss this guy." Jimi liked to have fun with that and intentionally confused fans by sometimes singing it that way and pointing to one of his band members.

In Cheech & Chong's film Nice Dreams, the line is parodied as, "'scuse me while I kiss this fly".

There has even been a website created called KissThisGuy.com dedicated to songs with misinterpreted lyrics.