What does Purple Haze mean?

Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze Meaning

Album cover for Purple Haze album cover

Song Released: 1967


Purple Haze Lyrics

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just dont seem the same
Actin funny, but I dont know why
scuse me while I kiss the sky
Purple haze all around
Dont know if Im comin up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
What ever it is, that girl...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jul 17th 2008 !⃝

    Jimi came straight out and denied that Purple Haze was about drugs, despite the possible obvious references. Sorry kids.

    Some previous posts linked the song to a dream he once had, which was getting close, one of you even mentioned love, which was right on.

    My understanding:
    The song was about the effects Jimi felt when he was falling in love with a girl. He felt absolutely entraced by her, to the point where he had dreams about her.

    He had trouble describing just how significantly she affected him, until he saw a documentary on so called "alien abductees" (Stay with me now...). Many of the people likened their experience onboard as an:
    out of body ("'Scuse me while I kiss the sky")
    timeless ("Tomorrow, or just the end of time")
    experience while surrounded by a Purple Haze.

    The give away line for me was always "What ever it is, that girl, put a spell on me."

    But take this version with a mountainous pile of salt.

    xox

    P.S. Didn't word check, be nice.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    lustinthemovies
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    Nov 26th 2006 !⃝

    The lyric truly is "...while I kiss the sky" but lots of people think it's "...while I kiss this guy" because Hendrix often used to sing the latter lyric on stage to confuse and provoke people. But it's officially "...the sky", he even has a biography named after the lyric.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    queenie_Toronto
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    Oct 12th 2012 !⃝

    I think that through a drug, his music, or intense unconditional love or self-love, or meditation, he had an experience where his 3rd eye opened. In this perception, he may have seen a tunnel surrounded by a purple haze(the indigo-purple colour of the 3rd eye), moving through tunnel(s) at light speed but always being in one moment, Now. You lose sight of time, there is none. You may have experience of other dimensions or worlds. We may also hear sounds or instruments from other frequencies. He was a Master (of music)(and a heightened sense of love for). This has sometimes been referred to as a waking dream. Or an OBE (out of body experience) or IBE (in body experience). I have had this. (no drugs though! :/

  4. anonymous
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    Jan 27th 2019 !⃝

    Its possible Jimi had a dream related to Vietnam. I was told once by a Helicopter pilot that when a paratrooper was surrounded in the jungle they sent up a purple distress flare which would make a purple haze all around. Just a thought.

  5. anonymous
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    Aug 10th 2018 !⃝

    JIMMY HENDRIX[R.I.P] awesome ''purple haze'' song came out to be known and experienced as one of the most popular ''acid trip'' songs of the late 60's and 70's. about what some of Hendrix followers came to believe is out of a dream he had about being trapped under the ocean[atlantic] where he couldn't tell if he's going up or down in it's ''purple haze'' of color like ''plasma'' that he felt was in and all around his brain. Awoke and metaphorically revealing to us the dream as an ''electric universe'' experience that magnetically attracted and pulled the heavenly young bodies closer together near Earth. As like his attraction for this earthly Girl that reminded him of one of those heavenly spheres that put a spell on him. Anotherwords Jimmi Hendrix was starstruck and blown out of the water by this Girl's heavenly beauty and presence. this was all before the deluge that came upon the earth in his dream out of their encountered collision that sadly thru them of their course, as once happened in the heavenly spheres to be experienced on earth as a love that fell in chaos and drifted away from eachother. wherenow he was in need to be saved in JESUS name, in order to rise out of the dream that he fell in deep water with and was turning into a nightmare end of time revelation for him who wanted out and be excused to kiss the new lighted sky again.

  6. anonymous
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    Sep 28th 2017 !⃝

    This is about flat earth ;) wonder why all these amazing artists were dying sudden deaths at such early ages? Exposing the truth..

    Think Kurt Cobain "I'm on a plane" (flat plane)

    The Doors, Pink Floyd were desperately trying to get the truth out there..
    Freddy Mercury try and understand Bohemian Rhaspody's true meaning. No, I'm not insane, there is zero proof of a ball, countless proofs of the FE... the truth doesn't need excuses (scientific THEORY)

  7. anonymous
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    Sep 13th 2017 !⃝

    I was given the nickname purple haze, I'm sure because I'm very much in love with someone I dated 42 years ago and we're engaged now to be married. I guess everyone has their own conclusions. I dream himandse him all the time. It's a girl

  8. anonymous
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    Sep 13th 2017 !⃝

    I was given the nickname purple haze, I'm sure because I'm very much in love with someone I dated 42 years ago and we're engaged now to be married. I guess everyone has their own conclusions. I dream himandse him all the time. It's a girl

  9. anonymous
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    Jul 7th 2017 !⃝

    Back in the mid 60s it was a career killer/death sentence to say your song was about taking drugs. 'That girl put a spell on me' made the
    song/album 'sellable' not to mention a black man telling teens about the glories of acid in song would have got him hung in some states.
    Do you also believe that Lennon's son drew a picture of a woman named 'Lucy'? C'mon,
    Lennon took acid, by his own account, over a
    thousand times.
    This song was the beginning of a musical style called 'acid rock' or, as it was known back in the day: 'Psychedelic' rock.
    One well known example: before the Doors performed on Ed Sullivans show , Morrison was told he had to drop the line "Couldn't get much higher'. The Stones had to sing 'Lets spend some time together' etc. Although ultimately exonerated, look what happened to Ozzie for 'Suicide Solution' ?
    Jimmi wasn't stupid.

  10. Tim Morse
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    Dec 7th 2016 !⃝

    It's about acid. Let's not forget it's running buddies. Window Payne and Orange Sunshine. There was Purple Dragon in the 70's. Remember Wavy Gravy's warning at Woodstock. "Don't eat the brown acid"

  11. anonymous
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    Jun 14th 2016 !⃝

    GET THIS INFORMATIN FROM THE SOURCE

    Hendrix claimed this 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.


    At one point, Hendrix wrote the chorus as "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves," but decided against it. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England)

    EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW THE TRUE MEANING



    Part of the lyrics were formed from some of Jimi's free verse ramblings that he jotted down from time to time.

  12. anonymous
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    Sep 17th 2013 !⃝

    wrote this after taking two hits of Owlsley "monterey purple" LSD at the monterey pop festival, june 1967.

  13. anonymous
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    Jun 3rd 2013 !⃝

    sorry guys but your meaning to this song is wrong this song is all about drugs and you guys know it

  14. anonymous
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    Nov 3rd 2012 !⃝

    Possible origin of Purple Haze:

    First page, second paragraph, second sentence of Chapter 6 in Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt".

    "When he stood on the low platform before the convention, he trembled and saw only a purple haze."

  15. anonymous
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    Jun 11th 2012 !⃝

    As a song writer myself I can tell you Artist are able to combine multiple meaning in song. I see both. The girl is the Drug. But the Drug is also the girl... "Kiss the sky" covers both and sounds cool at the same time.

    Art doesn't follow any rules......

  16. anonymous
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    May 17th 2012 !⃝

    Strike while the iron is hot!
    Count the money on the spot!

  17. anonymous
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    Jan 29th 2012 !⃝

    LSD TRIP

  18. anonymous
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    Jan 17th 2012 !⃝

    I feel like the song is about marijuana. I mean most of the song is pretty much what happens when you smoke quality bud. "And whatever it is, that girl(Mary Jane) put a spell on me."

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