EXPERIENCE PSYCHEDELIC ROCK HISTORY
– THIRD STONE FROM THE SUN –
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE
May 12, 1967 – 6:52
The Top 13 Historic & Classic 1960s Psychedelic Songs Count-Down
is based on ascending order of release dates – not on popularity or chart position.
The only exception is #1
This is #10
Strange, Beautiful.
There have been many artists who came and went before their time and single-handedly changed history leaving reverberations for generations to come; Jimi Hendrix was definitely one of them.
No other musical artist has even come close to defining “psychedelic” through their music as Hendrix has and “Third Stone From The Sun” goes beyond psychedelic – it’s hallucinogenic!
Volumes have been written on Jimi and we have all been “experienced” so the focus with this post and this list is strictly about the Psychedelic Factor – and this song is the Bible.
First off, the melody, it’s just beautiful – that melody alone has a timeless quality that could serve as the basis for a hit during any decade. But here it serves as the fluid force that drives the psychedelic trip through all of the alien world landscapes and time warp navigations through space and time.
Secondly, the subject matter and lyrics contain too many cool quotes. And thirdly and beyond, there are so many truly hallucinogenic sounds and feelings that Jimi manifests in this song that it is literally packed with psychedelia.
Back then, this song spoke directly to us Psychedelic Kidz; distorted guitar, distorted voice / vocals, ethereal passages, crunching, wailing outer space sounds these were all a musical extension of an acid trip.
When the psychedelics hit, all manner of reality begins to move in and out of your peripheral view as well as your physical senses becoming heightened; sound, movement, touch, thoughts.
I remember one day/evening I dropped acid and walked with a friend around our neighborhood, Jimi was accompanying us on our journey as his trailing swooshes of electric sound – heard on this record – were in the air, right there to match the trailing and underwater movement of everything around us that wasn’t nailed down, well, OK, even the houses seemed to groove a little, but the point is that “Third Stone From The Sun” is thee best example of the perfect balance for a psychedelic song; you can totally groove and enjoy it on so many levels that the psychedelic influence becomes the song.
Jimi had an affinity for the ocean and for outer space – and obviously beyond both in a very spiritual sense – his leaving will always be sad for us, but I believe that he really needed to move on. I saw this thought explained by a black brother, a friend of Jimi’s from England, and I paraphrase, he said nonchalantly that because of Jimi’s desire of always wanting to evolve that possibly the night he died, no matter what the real circumstances were, that he stood on the threshold of life here and life somewhere else, and just said, ”Cool, I’ll try this.” That sounds more like someone who was not afraid to die but had an underlying excitement of what was possible for him on the other side. I can fully relate.
Hendrix could have easily filled the Top 13 Historic & Classic 1960s Psychedelic Songs alone, but to be fair to all he’s only on the list twice.
“Third Stone From The Sun”
is 00individual’s choice in a three-way tie for #1.
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Trippy Note: The first time I heard the Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced” album was on an 8-track tape in the back of my buddy’s ’52 Chevy, he had bought it because he was into R ‘n’ B and thought it was an new English soul group. He had a reverb unit set up in the back of his car which made every tape sound like it was underwater – cool.
So when he turned up the volume and we heard this LP and “Third Stone From The Sun” for the very first time – I became “experienced” right there and then on Compass Drive in Westchester “the Home of LAX”.
Groovy!
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“Pencils Are Forever” 1998 by William Davis
00INDIVIDUAL 
