No. 30: ‘Iron Butterfly Theme’

Probably a coincidence, but Iron Butterfly beat Led Zeppelin to that heavy-light name game by at least a year. You know, the iron (or led), as ballast for the delicate flying creature (or dirigible).

The Southern California band also anticipated Led Zep’s mix of punishing riffs and ethereal wails with “Iron Butterfly Theme,” a wordless monster of a song that set an early standard for hard acid rock.

The 4 1/2-minute instrumental, recorded in 1967, demonstrates why Iron Butterfly has been called “the father of heavy metal” by Def Leppard and other headbangers. The Butterfly boys even called the album “Heavy.”

“Theme” covers the life cycle of an iron butterfly, beginning with the throbs of birth, then the exhilarating flight, then the crash-and-burn accompanied by the devils of feedback and anarchy.

Throughout, keyboardist Doug Ingle’s organ dances and duels with Danny Weis’ distorted guitar as tribal drums pound away. As a coda, Morse code announces the death of the bellowing beast … fade to black. It’s as cinematic a song as there is in rock.

Nothing quite like “Iron Butterfly Theme” had been recorded before, except, perhaps, for the sonic chaos of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” This was proto-metal, as if Pink Floyd had recorded while tripping on horse tranquilizers.

Giving the song its unshakable creepiness is Ingle’s chanting — the echo of demented monks, perhaps. A warning of medieval horrors to come. Or, at least, something from the slab at Hammer Films.

There also exists a heroic quality that summons up another movie — picture a Schwarzeneggerian warrior holding his blade high to the skies, seeking the final reward of a lightning bolt. Like in “Heavy Metal” the movie, come to think of it.

Ingle called the group’s sound an exercise in “melodic consciousness.” That path soon would lead to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” the 17-minute psychedelic slog for which the band is remembered today.

Fame came fast and faded in a few short years. The group was a victim of its musical bloat and inconsistent recordings — outplayed and outflanked by other West Coast psychedelic bands.

But for that first glorious 4 1/2 minutes, Iron Butterfly soared.

No. 26: ‘Sky Pilot’ by Eric Burdon

In 1968, Eric Burdon had completed his transition from white R&B shouter to long-haired leaping gnome.

The English singer disbanded the original Animals (of “House of the Rising Sun Fame”) in 1966 and enthusiastically turned to lysergically inspired music.

The sprawling single “Sky Pilot,” released at the dawn of that war-torn year, proved to be a game changer, one of rock’s first cinematic songs.

At more than seven minutes, the number sprawled across both sides of the 45 record, its many sonic effects captured in true stereo. Even at that length, Eric Burdon’s song was a hit single, reaching No. 14 in the U.S. and remaining an FM radio staple over the decades.

While the song’s subtle anti-war message surely concerned the Vietnam War, its shadowing invoked the two world wars. The millieu reportedly as witnessed by Burdon’s grandfather in WWI.

The titular sky pilot is a military chaplain, charged with comforting soldiers headed off to the battlefield. Burdon begins his profile a cappella against a black silence:

“He blesses the boys as they stand in line
The smell of gun grease and the bayonets they shine
He’s there to help them all that he can
To make them feel wanted he’s a good holy man”

The song picks up the pace with the entry of a rock band, lean and muscular. Moments later, “Sky Pilot” takes off on a sonic adventure incorporating bagpipes, gunfire, the screech of dive-bombers, distorted guitars and reverb-drenched vocals, flanged-out drums, horns, woodwinds and even piccolos.

Musically and conceptually, the song brings to mind the Doors’ “The Unknown Soldier” (recorded a month after “Sky Pilot’s” release), the Who’s early mini-rock operas and the Beatles’ orchestrated character studies of 1966 and 1967.

Emotionally, “Sky Pilot” recalls the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” another song about death, religion and loneliness that was released in 1966. After mumbling a prayer, the “so tired” chaplin returns to his bunk as the lads march off to their fates. “He’ll meditate/but it won’t stop the bleeding/or ease the hate.” The functionary sky pilot, we’re told, will “never reach the sky.”

At the climax of the song’s combat sequence, we hear military bagpipes play “All the Bluebonnets Are Over the Border.” Then, a string quartet provides sweet contrast to the singer’s invocation of the “stench of death” and the bleak hopes for our sky pilot. More orchestral instruments join in, freestyle, the resulting sonic swirls reflecting the absurdities of war.

Burdon shared writing credit with his “new” Animals: Vic Briggs (guitar), John Weider (guitar and electric violin), Danny McCulloch (bass), and Barry Jenkins (drums). Briggs arranged and orchestrated the song, which was produced by Tom Wilson (Bob Dylan, the Mothers of Invention). It appeared on the album “The Twain Shall Meet.”

Burdon would successfully repeat the cinematic style a few years later with the fantasy “Spill the Wine,” another strong entry on our list of the Best Psychedelic Songs.

“Sky Pilot” lyrics:

He blesses the boys as they stand in line
The smell of gun grease and the bayonets they shine
He’s there to help them all that he can
To make them feel wanted he’s a good holy man
Sky pilot,
Sky pilot,
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky.

He smiles at the young soldiers
Tells them it’s all right
He knows of their fear in the forthcoming fight
Soon there’ll be blood and many will die
Mothers and fathers back home they will cry
Sky pilot,
Sky pilot,
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky.

He mumbles a prayer and it ends with a smile
The order is given
They move down the line
But he’ll stay behind and he’ll meditate
But it won’t stop the bleeding or ease the hate

As the young men move out into the battle zone
He feels good, with God you’re never alone
He feels tired and he lays on his bed
Hopes the men will find courage
in the words that he said
Sky pilot,
Sky pilot,
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky.

You’re soldiers of God, you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job real well
If it all was worth it
Only time it will tell

In the morning they return
With tears in their eyes
The stench of death drifts up to the skies
A soldier so ill looks at the sky pilot
Remembers the words
“Thou shalt not kill”
Sky pilot,
Sky pilot,
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky.

No. 20: ‘East/West’

In the fall of 1965, the blues guitar prodigy Michael Bloomfield dropped acid. He had a vision, a musical vision, that he said unlocked the secrets of Indian music.

After the all-night psychedelic experience, he began work on “the raga,” an improbable instrumental mash-up of Eastern drones and scales, and Western free jazz, rock and Chicago blues harmonica.

Bloomfield presented the improvisational concept to his fellow players in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Until that point, this was a fairly straightforward group out of Chicago — except for its white leader and its interracial mix of musicians.

“East-West” seemed to come out of nowhere, a full-blown shock of the new, but clues to its genesis could be found in the key players’ musical DNA:

Butterfield, a local harmonica player, had been schooled on blues by Muddy Waters (who called him “my son”). Butterfield’s harp playing was fluid and thoughtful. New to the group was Billy Davenport, a jazz drummer whose heroes included Charlie Parker, Gene Krupa and Max Roach. To pay the bills, he played the blues. A second white guitarist, Elvin Bishop, specialized in the often eerie sounds of seminal bluesman Robert Johnson. Keyboardist Mark Naftalin studied music theory and composition.

From this cauldron emerged one of the boldest experiments in the history of blues and rock. The group’s second album, “East-West,” hit the street a year later, its title song running 13-plus minutes. This, however, was not the full-blown “East-West,” which in performance could top an hour’s length.

“This song was based, like Indian music, on a drone,” Naftalin has said. “In Western musical terms it ’stayed on the one.’”

Bloomfield, Butterfield and Bishop take solo turns and come together just the song’s unforgettable climax. The stucture is that of a suite, with different modes (scales) ruling different sections. Bishop takes the first solo spot, with Bloomfield doing the heavy lifting throughout, running through his acid-flash collection of exotic modes while his partner drones along.

Davenport works furiously in the background, applying the (oxymoronic) disciplines of free jazz. He sometimes imitates the tabla and mridanga drummers of Indian sitar ensembles. At other times he plays what sounds like bossa nova/samba.

Butterfield provides ballast and encouragement throughout, before propelling “East-West” in its final minutes, his blues harp channeling Coltrane as the guitars go spinning-dervish around him. At one point, Butterfield responds to the creative chaos with dissonant honks, a brilliant and somehow logical move.

“East/West” influenced many of the California psychedelic bands, lighting the way to free-form improvisation, instrumental textures for their own sakes, dissonance and non-traditional scales. Few of these hippie acts had the musical chops to even approximate the Butterfield band’s achievement, but some did — such as Quicksilver Messenger Service, Santana and to some extent the Grateful Dead.

Bloomfield left the band after the “East-West” album, never to hit those heights again. He died a drug user. Butterfield, too, died early, but not before the spirit of “East-West” infused a series of excellent albums by his growing band, notably 1968’s “In My Own Dream.” Bishop went on to a career in Southern rock and enjoyed a few hit singles.

Indian and Arabic sounds never left rock. The Beatles’ George Harrison, of course, became the highest-profile student of Eastern sounds, studying with the sitar master Ravi Shankar. In 1966, the brought the instruments to the Beatles recordings with “Norwegian Wood.” The Beatles continued with the instrument for several years.

The keyboardist Naftalin gathered together a trio of live live “East-West” recordings (1966-’67) for an album released in 1996. The low-fi recordings track the evolution of the number. The rock critic Dave Marsh wrote the “East/West Live” liner notes, a must read for those seeking an understanding of the song.

No. 10: Happenings 10 Years Time Ago

From the intersection of freak out and rave up comes the Yardbirds’ massive “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,” often cited as the first psychedelic rock song.

The slash-and-burn number featured the Yardbirds‘ ephemeral duo-guitar attack of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Recorded in July of 1966, the song seemingly touched every other rock musician who mattered for the rest of the decade, notably Jimi Hendrix.

“Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” anticipated acid rock, punk and heavy metal. Nothing like it had ever been recorded — with the possible exception of Love’s frantic “7 and 7 Is,” cut in the same month.

“Happenings” begins innocently enough, with a bit of the raga-influenced guitar that the Yardbirds favored that year. A propulsive run down the guitar neck sparks the sonic storm. Singer Keith Relf sounds dazed and confused as he tries to sort out a waking dream, a serious case of deja vu or perhaps an acid flashback:

Meeting people on my way
Seemingly I’ve known one day
Familiarity of things
That my dreaming always brings

When the Yardbirds’ signature rave-up comes, it’s the sound of chaos, of Vishnu at work, an eerily accurate sonic representation of a bad trip.

As Telecaster masters Beck and Page shred their ways through the instrumental break, we hear a European police siren wailing in and out. There’s an explosion or two and a distant Cockney voice shaming: “Pop group, are you? You should get your hair cut!”

Yardbirds member Chris Dreja recalls it as a “miniature rock opera.” Hendrix reportedly told Beck that the number inspired his “Third Stone From the Sun.”

The song came out as a single a few months after the Yardbirds album now known as “Roger the Engineer” — aka “The Yardbirds” and “Over Under Sideways Down.” It enjoyed modest success on the charts, the last single to do so for the hitmaking band. (”Happenings” now appears as a track on “Roger the Engineer.”)

In the U.K., the “Happenings” flip side had “Psycho Daisies,” a forgettable Jeff Beck song in which he sings about his actress girlfriend. In America, the ballsy bluesy “The Nazz Are Blue” lit up the B side, making for a powerhouse 45. (Young Todd Rundgren named his pop band after “Nazz.” )

Jeff Beck was on his way out of the British rock band, while Jimmy Page made his move from bass to guitar. The bass player on the session was future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and indeed “Happenings” brings to mind that future rock institution. (Led Zeppelin toured briefly under the name the New Yardbirds.)

The Yardbirds reunion group included the psychedelic blowout on the 2003 album “Birdland.” Rundgren went on to record a note-perfect version of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” and, of course, the myriad covers keep on rolling.

This Yardbirds video shows the band working with Jimmy Page on guitar. Jeff Beck frequently missed gigs, although he may no longer have been the band at the time. (View more Yardbirds videos)

Further reading:
The Book of Seth on “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” single
Jeff Beck: The Early Years (Fanzine)

No. 33: ‘Eskimo Blue Day’

“Volunteers” found Jefferson Airplane in a radical mood. The 1969 album was overtly political, while most of the San Francisco group’s works to date had been concerned with romance, whimsy and matters of the head.

“We are forces of chaos and anarchy,” Grace Slick and Marty Balin sang on the opening track, “We Can Be Together.” The song shocked the squares and delighted the freak faithful with its soaring cry of “Up against the wall, motherfucker.” The band had plugged into radical chic.

More widely quoting swearing followed on “Eskimo Blue Day,” the seventh track, which saw the group embrace another social revolution: the nascent ecology movement.

“The human name doesn’t mean shit to a tree,” the lyric went, this news just in from the closest redwood.

The lyrics came from Slick, who shared songwriting credit with her Jefferson Airplane bandmate and lover Paul Kantner. The words exhibited her razor-wire ‘tude and his love of the obscure and exotic. The song seems to anticipate an awareness of global warming by decades — most likely luck, a psychedelic mindset and coincidence, but who knows.

Consider the evidence, in lyric fragments:

Snow cuts loose from the frozen
Until it joins with the African sea
In moving it changes its cold and its name …
If you don’t mind heat in your river and
Fork tongue talking from me …
Snow called water going violent
Damn the end of the stream

“Our greed does mean shit to a tree.” Slick said years later. “The trees are dying. All of our separating ourselves from the planet is stupid because, the larger picture, whether or not you become president of Bank America has nothing to do with evolution.”

The Airplane had become heavier in its old age, with “Eskimo Blue Day” a fine example of its late-period aggressive psychedelics, driven by the team of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady. The song begins moody and midtempo, building into a rock grove and then setting off a firestorm of distorted guitar, bass and drums.

After the song charges into head-banging territory, it returns to a hurricane eye of calm before charging off yet again. The dynamics over its 6 1/2 minute run are breathtaking. “Eskimo Blue Day” would become a showcase of the Airplane’s late-60s live shows and was part of their Woodstock set.

“Eskimo Blue Day” ends with what could be a glacier breaking apart, perhaps a man-made explosion, maybe the end of the world. An appropriately mysterious end to a baffling and prophetic song.

Read lyrics to “Eskimo Blue Day” by Grace Slick and Paul Kantner.
Buy “Volunteers” at Amazon

No. 41: ‘EXP,’ ‘Up From the Skies’

“A rather peculiar-looking gentleman” arrives for a radio interview.

When asked to comment about “this nonsense about space ships and even space people,” he responds by melting, elevating, transforming, transcending … and then departing on the intergalactic vessel cloaked as Jimi Hendrix’s guitar.

After all the sonic fireworks, another alien addresses mankind on the topic of our planet, this time bopping along on a relaxed jazz beat:

“I just want to talk to you, I won’t do you no harm.
I just want to know about your different lives,
on this here people farm.”

So begins the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second album, “Axis: Bold as Love.”

In May 1967, Hendrix’s first album was released, quite likely the most startling record debut in history. The left-handed guitarist immediately become one of the biggest stars in rock. Seven months later came the hugely anticipated “Axis.”

The radio skit, “EXP,” opened the album, a 1:55 prelude to “Up From the Skies.” Drummer Mitch Mitchell and Hendrix play the talk show host and alien, respectively. As Hendrix’s extraterrestrial speaks (”You just can’t believe everything you see and hear … can you?”), his voice slows to a slur as the effects-drenched guitar swirl begins, chasing itself from speaker to speaker.

As the turmoil subsides, we’re left with another major surprise from Hendrix: “Up From the Skies” begins immediately, with a sprightly Mose Allison jazz feel. Mitchell plays cocktail lounge-friendly brushes on his drums. Hendrix’s guitar streams through a wah-wah pedal, no doubt a first for jazz rock (pretty much an oxymoron in ‘67). The song was recorded two days before Halloween 1967.

The cosmic one-two punch of “EXP” and “Up From the Skies” was an early sighting in what was later dubbed “Alien rock.”

Hendrix’s mystical qualities included a good deal of prescience, as “Up From the Skies” anticipates the eco-nightmares to come — this a year before the release of “The Whole Earth Catalog”:

“I have lived here before, the days of ice.
And of course this is why I’m so concerned,
And I come back to find,
the stars misplaced and the smell of a world that has burnt.
The smell of a world that has burnt.”

“Up From the Skies” has inspired a galaxy of covers, including those by Rickie Lee Jones, Gilberto Gil, Joan Jett, Kenny Rankin, jazzmaster Gil Evans and various crossover classical outfits such as the String Quartet.

Hendrix continued to use his alien as a narrator for songs and sometimes told friends he was sent to Earth from another place. Who’s to say?

Further reading: “Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix.”
“Up From the Skies” chords

“Up From the Skies” lyrics, by Jimi Hendrix

I just want to talk to you, I won’t do you no harm.
I just want to know about your different lives,
on this here people farm.
I heard some of you got your families,
living in cages tall and cold,
And some just stay there and dust away, past the age of old.
Is this true? Please let me talk to you.
I just want to know about the rooms behind your minds,
Do I see a vacuum there, or am I going blind?
Or is it just a remains from vibrations and echoes long ago,
Things like ‘Love the world’ and ‘Let your fancy flow’,
Is this true? Please let me talk to you.
Let me talk to you.
I have lived here before, the days of ice.
And of course this is why I’m so concerned,
And I come back to find,
the stars misplaced and the smell of a world that has burnt.
The smell of a world that has burnt.

Yeah, well maybe, maybe it’s just a change of climate.
I can dig it, I can dig it baby. I just want to see.

So where do I purchase my ticket,
I just like to have a ringside seat.
I want to know about the new Mother Earth,
I want to hear and see everything (3x)
Yeah. Aw, shucks, If my daddy could see me now

No. 16: ‘I Walk on Guilded Splinters’

In 1968, the veteran New Orleans record producer and songwriter Mac Rebbenack caught the psychedelic bug and started performing under the name Dr. John Creaux, the Night Tripper.

The Night Tripper’s brew of voodoo rhythms, New Orleans R&B and psychedelic sounds produced at least one etched-in-vinyl masterpiece: the frightfully mysterious “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.”

The tune came from Dr. John’s debut LP “Gris-Gris,” a concept album built around the Night Tripper character. It was recorded in L.A. with a group of fellow New Orleans expatriates, notably Harold Battiste.

Gris-gris refers to a voodoo spell or amulet. The name Dr. John came from the mid-1800s, belonging to a potions brewer and voodoo practitioner, who may or may not have had some link to Rebbenack’s family. Dr. John would do his Night Tripper bit performing in robes and with elaborate Mardis Gras headdresses. The stage was set for narcotic rhythms, and sounds suited to the soundtrack of “I Walked With a Zombie.”

Here’s Richie Unterberger in his “Gris-Gris” liner notes for a CD rerelease:

The blend of druggy deep blues, incantational background vocals, exotic mandolin and banjo trills, ritualistic percussion, interjections of free jazz, and Dr. John’s own seductive-yet-menacing growl was like a psychedelic voodoo ceremony invading your living room.

Indeed, 20th century legend has it that “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” has proved authentic enough to be used in New Orleans voodoo rituals. Certainly it found favor with the psychedelic drug users, who flirted with some seriously bad trips. Is that singer really calling out “Did I murder” over and over? Have some more gumbo spiked with acid.

At a time when psychedelic-tinged bands favored longer and longer songs, Dr. John showed the hippies how it’s done: “Guilded Splinters” (aka “Gilded Splinters”) slithers and flow-times its way across 7 minutes and 43 seconds. The song takes almost a minute to end, as if the singer were drifting off into a dream state, or perhaps emerging from a trance.

Ginger Baker and his Air Force often get credit for bringing true African music into rock, but two years earlier Dr. John summoned up the Dark Continent with the song’s humid and primal conga beat. The singer even name-checks the Zulu:

Walk on guilded splinters
With the King of the Zulu

The Night Tripper seems to be placing a curse or praying for vengeance. A couple of female backup singers complete the call and response. Dr. John growls and spits out this prediction of doom for his tormentors:

When I roll out in my coffin
Drink poison in my chalice
Pride begins to fade
And y’all feel my malice
I put gris-gris on your doorstep

The voodoo haze lifted over the years but the name Dr. John stuck. The singer-pianist has gone on to a long and prolific career as a signature New Orleans R&B/pop/jazz artist.

“I Walk on Guilded Splinters” remains a favorite among musicians. Humble Pie recorded a famous version for “Rockin’ the Fillmore” while more recently Paul Weller, the Allman Brothers and Little Feat featured it in concert. Contemporary bands like Widespread Panic continue the tradition.

Here’s a live video of Humble Pie doing its version of “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.” The performance is moodier than the “Fillmore” version and closer in spirit to the Dr. John the Night Tripper original. Check out young Peter Frampton in the white shirt (at 0:44). The singer is Steve Marriott. (From the Bilzin Festival in Belgium, August 1967.)

More “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” videos:

Paul Weller
Johnny Jenkins (mostly audio)
Marsha Hunt (weak audio)

Further reading on “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”:

“I Walk on Guilded Splinters” lyrics
A blogger’s salute
Gris-Gris liner notes

No. 6: Cream’s ‘White Room’

Known for its slashing wah-wah guitar solo, pounding drums and halting drug-inspired lyrics, “White Room” remains one of Cream’s heavily trafficked songs.

Although the wah-wah pedal effect on Eric Clapton’s guitar marks it as a product of the late 1960s, “White Room” feels as contemporary as anything in the Cream catalog. The rock song is marked by an unusual sophistication in the lyrics and musical structure.

Lyricist Pete Brown wrote “White Room” with bassist/singer Jack Bruce. Brown’s carefully measured poetry (doled out in four-syllable phrases) lifts this above so many trippy-nonsense lyrics of the era:

“In the white room, with black curtains, near the station, 
Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings”

The “White Room” was a new flat (apartment) inhabited by Brown, a place where “the shadows run from themselves.” Before long, Brown must confront “the station,” perhaps the London Tube, where pain awaits as a lover departs:

“You said no strings could secure you at the station. 

Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.”

While drugs reportedly came into play in the song’s creation, this is a fine example of a psychedelic song working within the temporal confines of a rock single.

“White Room” remains a concert staple for both Bruce and Clapton. It was the penultimate song at the 2005 reunion shows.

Further reading on Cream’s “White Room”
“White Room” lyrics
“White Room” chords