Communication isn’t easy for anybody. Opening yourself up to any human is tough, but conversing with a potential partner and sharing your soul simply through language is a daunting prospect, especially for someone like Jimi Hendrix.
He may well be regarded as one of the most influential musicians of all time, but that doesn’t mean everything came easy for Jimi Hendrix. He, like most men his age, while interested in partaking in the free love that seemed to emanate from the very essence of the 1960s, found it troublesome trying to find a real connection after doing so. But while most would grumble or kick the odd rock, Hendrix would put his frustrations into a song.
Appearing on Hendrix band’s debut album Are You Experienced?, ‘Manic Depression’ is one song on the record that really sticks out—primarily because it has a strong message. The fast-paced triple metre gives the song chops, and Hendrix’s playing on the track is, of course, astronomical. Mitch Mitchell’s jazz drums are captivating, and when the bassline and guitar lick marry up, they make for something truly impressive.
A lolloping time signature and a universally accepted theme, this is a near-perfect distillation of Hendrix’s power. Lyrically, Hendrix delivers with a canny nonchalance: “Manic depression is searching my soul, I know what I want, but I just don’t know.” But while the notions of clinical depression are here for all to see, and the track was inspired by his manager Chas Chandler referring to the guitarist as “manic depressive” in a press conference, the real point of note is that Hendrix is clearly lovesick.
Unable to truly communicate with his partners or the public, the musician turns to his instrument to complete the job. The frustration isn’t just with his inability to work symbiotically with another person but that he doesn’t have the same connection with humans as he does with music itself. Hendrix sings: “Music, sweet music, I wish I could caress, caress, caress,” showing his love for the art and his mistrust of humanity in comparison.
Once introducing the song during a concert, Hendrix shared: “We’d like to do a frustrating kind of song for you,” he yelled, showing his discomfort. “It’s called ‘Manic Depression’ – it’s a story ’bout a cat wishin’ he could make love to music instead of the same old everyday woman.”
The love life of Hendrix was one that you might expect from a trend-setting rock and roller in the 1960s. But there were a number of women who infiltrated his life enough to be given their own songs. Lithofayne ‘Faye’ Pridgeon was the girl behind Hendrix’s iconic ‘Foxey Lady’, while his later girlfriend Kathy Etchingham would be the inspiration for ‘1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)’, ‘Gypsy Eyes’ and ‘The Wind Cries Mary’. The guitarist would sadly lose his life in 1970 and was engaged to German figure skater Monika Dannemann when he sadly passed away.
While Hendrix may have been a relatively hopeless boyfriend and rarely settled down long enough to make a relationship work, there was one romance he never turned his back on. Music is the only thing that remains in his personal relationships, but it speaks louder than he ever could.
