Little Wing

Listening to my iPod on my hour-long commute to work, I took a break from NPR Podcasts (about which I will undoubtedly write in the near future) to listen to some good old fashioned music. I hit the seemingly not-so-random "Shuffle Songs" on my menu, and was thrown into a musical reverie the likes of which I can usually only dream of attaining. As Jimi hits the first note of "Little Wing" and slides it down the guitar, I close my eyes and shut out the noise of the rush hour A express...143 seconds of pure bliss are underway.

Though it originally appeared on Axis: Bold As Love in 1967 (see: coolest album cover ever...and a poster in my house, compliments of Doug), the version I have is from The Ultimate Experience (compliments of Adam Baker in 7th Grade), a collection of 22 of the best rock songs you'll ever hear.

"Little Wing" went largely unnoticed by me for years until, in the winter of 2004 I had the excellent fortune of seeing a certain John Mayer play his first ever trio show at Webster Hall in New York (he also wrote on the song for Rolling Stone back in 2004...any plagiarism on my part is completely coincidental, I swear). The club is tiny, holding under 1,000, and when Mayer launched into his Hendrix-zone I knew we were all in for a treat. His version that night (which is also on my iPod) exceeded the original by about 6 minutes, and would forever change the way I view both a) the song and b) guitarists. But...enough about John Mayer (is that possible?). We're talkin Hendrix here, so let's focus.

As I mentioned before, "Little Wing" runs at 2:23, a short song even by the standards of the 1960s. The only band that could make 2:23 work more effectively than Hendrix does with "Little Wing" was The Beatles with...oh, I don't know...90% of their songs written before 1965.

From the first aforementioned guitar-slide, to the too-soon fadeout, "Little Wing" is a truly musical and lyrical psychedelic experience.

"Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running round
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad, she comes to me
With a thousand smiles, she gives to me free
It's alright, she say's
It's alright
Take anything you want from me
Anything.

Fly on little wing,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, little wing"

At this point there is only :36 left in the song. For half a minute, Hendrix lets go in a way unlike he does in any other song. His guitar moves and soars, and he shakes you to the bone with a most sensual guitar solo (other than possibly Clapton, who has been excluded for reasons of unfair sensuality). Just as the song is looping and spiraling out of control, it begins its inevitable but premature fadeout.

Where did the solo go? How much pure Hendrixian brilliance was cut from the tape? In subsequent live performances he cuts it just as short, but the album version shows no signs of ending until it is ripped away from us.

(Isn't this just perfect, though? The ultimate allegory for Hendrix's life and death...an eerie premonition. A song, just like the man, made of spectacular passion, cut down in its prime when there was endless potential for things to come.)

I can imagine that his solo lasted for three hours past the 2:23. I can see the producer (Chas Chandler) sitting there, Mitch Mitchell pounding away on the drums and Noel Redding punching in his bass, just awestruck. What could he do with that solo? THREE HOURS OF A HENDRIX SOLO? So he decided, in a move of sheer douchebaggery, to cut the solo at 36 seconds just because he had no idea where else to cut it. It got way too intense after that. So, 2:59:24 of the best solo ever played is history.

On the other hand, I can imagine that the solo rambled on and on for a dozen more minutes before Hendrix realized that what had started as the greatest solo of all time became a stoned, unfocused mess after about 40 seconds so he'd better keep it at 36 just to be safe. This is, needless to say, NOT the version of imaginary history that I choose to accept. If you've ever heard "Machine Gun" or any of the Live at Berkeley recordings, you know that Hendrix was not one to shy away from longwinded and dissonant guitar solos.

So, because of Chas Chandler's inability to cope with the longest guitar solo in imaginary history, we are stuck and blessed with the smallest taste...an amouse-bouche, if you will...of what could have been. Mayer's rendition in 2004 brings us close, and sometimes at The Cutting Room Richie Cannata and the guests on stage will play "Little Wing" and bring us ever closer (one in particular 3 weeks ago, Joe __?__, a bear of a man with ass-length hair and a big beard actually appeared to channel Jimi from the stage for about 5 minutes), but in reality all I can really do is hope that Hendrix comes back to life and finishes his masterpiece with me at the production helm.