Simon's School of Rock - Thursday, April 9th

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Tonight's chapter on Simon's School of Rock is also one of music's best mondegreens.  Mondegreens are commonly mishead lyrics.  In the case of tonight's song, Purple Haze, by Jimi Hendrix, I'm referring to the lyrics, "'scuse me while I kiss the sky."  The commonly mishead mondegreen is "'scuse me while I kiss this guy."

Jimi claimed that Purple Haze 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.

Also, as a true maverick of music, Jimi opened the song with a chord of two riffs, then an interval of flattened fifth, called the "tritone," which has long been regarded as the "Most imperfect of dissonances" and was generally avoided in composition for that reason.

Jimi wasn't afraid to use it, though.

Simon's School of Rock is every weeknight at 8 on 106.5 the Arch.