Jimi Hendrix – The Star Spangled Banner Live at Woodstock

Jimi Hendrix – The Star Spangled Banner Live at Woodstock | Society Of Rock Videos

Hendrix displays his own version of America’s anthem

Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock featured a rendition of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner“. It definietly didn’t sounds like the version we are all used to. Like everything else Jimi did, he did it his own way. “He used copious amounts of amplifier feedback, distortion, and sustain to replicate the sounds made by rockets and bombs.”

Although contemporary political pundits described his interpretation as a statement against the Vietnam War, three weeks later Hendrix explained its meaning: “We’re all Americans … it was like ‘Go America!‘… We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, see”.

It seems as if everyone had very strong opinions about what was going on during that time. And, at Woodstock… well I’m sure everyone agreed with Jimi’s rage filled take on the song.

Hendrix and Woodstock: Three Little Known Facts about the Performance That Defined the ’60s

  • Hendrix performed an encore at Woodstock, a rarity. He almost never performed encores, but at Woodstock, despite the vanishing crowd, he did.
  • The Star Spangled Banner was not played on its own. It was part of a medley lasting over half an hour, one of the longest such medleys.
  • It was the only Hendrix show that included a second guitarist. Larry Lee backed up Hendrix on a number of songs.

 

+++++LYRICS+++++

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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