Purple has been a frequent idea in the world of music, as you’ll see from this week’s Tidbits facts.
- American songwriter Sheb Wooley called his 1958 novelty song “The Purple People Eater,” a song he wrote in an hour, “undoubtedly the worst song he had ever written.” Apparently listeners didn’t agree as the song rose to #1 on the Billboard pop charts that year. It told the story of a strange creature from outer space – a “one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater” – who came to Earth with the desire to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
- Jimi Hendrix released “Purple Haze” in March, 1967, after recording the song in just four hours. Hendrix wrote the lyrics on the day after Christmas in 1966, and claimed the words were based on a dream in which he was engulfed while walking under the sea. Although he maintained the song wasn’t related to drugs, the lyrics could be interpreted as an experience while on a hallucinogenic trip.
- The American musician Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelson) released “Purple Rain” in 1984, and the song climbed to Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Thirty-two years later, upon the death of Prince, “Purple Rain” re-entered the Hot 100, reaching Number 4. In 2007, Prince was the featured artist at the Super Bowl XLI halftime show, and as he performed the song as the last of his performance, it began to rain upon a stage and stadium lit with purple lights. “Purple Rain” was also the final song of his final concert, just a week before his death in April, 2016.
- Country rock band New Riders of the Purple Sage was founded in San Francisco in 1969, with an original lineup that included several members of the Grateful Dead, including Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar.
- The song “Deep Purple” was a big hit for big band orchestras in the 1930s and 1940s. Originally composed as a piano solo in 1933, lyrics were added in 1938, and it became a standard for several famous orchestras. Little did composer Peter DeRose know in 1933 that his song would be the inspiration for the name of one of the pioneers in the genre of heavy metal and hard rock music in the 1970s. The song was the favorite of the grandmother of British guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who proposed changing the name of his band Roundabout to Deep Purple in his grandmother’s honor. Their most famous album, “Machine Head,” featured the song “Smoke on the Water,” written after the band members witnessed a devastating fire at the Montreux Casino on Switzerland’s Lake Geneva in 1971. The complex organ solos were performed by a classically-trained organist, Jon Lord, who was inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
- In 1972, the band made history as the loudest when they performed a concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre, when the sound reached 117 decibels. It was so loud that three members of the audience fell unconscious due to the acoustic pressure. The band has experienced sales of upwards of 100 million records.
• In 1975, singer/songwriter Mac Davis released “Biff the Friendly Purple Bear,” a country sung about the friendship between a toy bear and a young boy navigating through childhood. The lyrics were from the point of view of the boy’s wooden play horse.
- How many of these purple songs do you recognize? Zach Bryan is responsible for 2024’s “Purple Gas,” while Kendrick Lamar recorded “Purple Hearts” in 2022. Country crooner Dwight Yoakam covered Prince’s “Purple Rain” in 2016, and Gwen Stefani released “Purple Irises” in 2024.
