Tuesday 18 December 2012

DESIGN FOR PRINT AND WEB//SONG INFORMATION//OUGD504

JIMI HENDRIX - LITTLE WING

The final song I have chosen to do for a final poster is Jimi hendrixs' Little Wing, the reason for this is because I think Jimi Hendrix is a massive sixties icon with a distinctive style, and the lyrics to Little Wing are interesting and look good written down:

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 says it's alright 
Take anything you want from me, 
Anything. 

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


HENRIX SPEAKING ABOUT LITTLE WING:

Hendrix spoke to a Swedish journalist about the song in January 1968, saying "Well, that was one song on there we did a lot of sound on, you know. We put the guitar through the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like jelly bread, you know….It’s based on a very, very simple American Indian style, you know, very simple. I got the idea like, when we was in Monterey, and I just happened to…just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, something like that, you know, and call it 'Little Wing', in other words, just fly away. Everybody really flying and they’s really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really great out there. So I just took all these things an put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, you know. That’s one of the very few ones I like."
When asked by a London reporter in 1967 what his favorite track off the Axis: Bold as Love album was, Hendrix listed "Little Wing" and "You Got Me Floating" as his favourites.
Author Rotimi Ogunjobi states that "'Little Wing' is the name of Hendrix's guardian angel (like 'Waterfall', that is mentioned in the song 'May This Be Love' on the debut album)."

STYLE
Author Harry Shapiro examined the song, saying musically it is "structured to lay a gossamer touch across the whole song from the arresting opening statement and the haunting glockenspiel to the use of a Leslie speaker cabinet for the guitar. The speaker baffle rotates, creating a Doppler effect of rising and falling waves of sound. Jimi plays the song almost like a pianist with the thumb fretting the bass notes like the pianist's left hand, while the fingers of the fretting hand correspond to the right. The song fades on a magical solo after only two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Even live, 'Little Wing' was hardly any longer – he said what he wanted to say and stopped."
While on the initial studio track Hendrix played his guitar through a Leslie speaker, which was normally used with Hammond organs, the simultaneous use of a distortion effect gave the guitar a unique sound. During live shows and on later recordings, Hendrix "used the 'Univibe' effect pedal to get a simulated Leslie sound, instead of using a real speaker."
Due to the heavy use of studio recording techniques in creating the Axis: Bold as Love album, only "Spanish Castle Magic" and "Little Wing" were performed regularly at concerts.

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