Bold as Love – Jimi Hendrix

Writing about Jimi Hendrix is like trying to take a single photograph that fully captures the scale and awesomeness of the Grand Canyon. Damn near impossible to truly do it justice.

One of my favorite Hendrix tracks, “Bold as Love,” is one of the songs I think I would choose for someone to listen to if they had never heard Jimi’s music before. It’s a great intro to the style that he’s best recognized for by casual listeners, encompassing the charisma of his playing as well as his lyrical themes of love and metaphorical allusions.

I love Jimi’s use of colors to add an even more vivid appeal to the imagery in the lyrics, which are already pretty trippy. I take it as using the colors to represent emotions, with the most emboldened emotion or even all-encompassing being love, which I think could be seen as a rainbow.

I also love his personification of “the axis.” In a 1968 interview, Hendrix gave his interpretation of it. “If it changes, well, it changes the whole face of the Earth, like, every few thousand years. It’s like love in a human being; if he really falls in deep enough, it will change him. It might change his whole life. So both of them can really go together.” I think Jimi would get a real kick out of all the different interpretations of his lyrics today. As complex as they can be, there’s a beautiful simplicity to a lot of the meanings.

As far as Jimi’s playing goes, this is considered by many to be one of his best works, and arguably the second solo that comes in after Mitch Mitchell‘s epic drum roll is one of his best ever. It’s like an explosion of all the colors and emotions that are described in the lyrics. I would argue that the non-album version, recorded at Olympic Studios in London on October 5th, 1967, is the ultimate rendition. No vocals, just instrumentation. This doesn’t take away from any of Jimi’s lyrics, but he is able to convey so much emotion and feeling in all forms through his guitar playing. This concept isn’t new to any seasoned Hendrix fans, but if you haven’t heard this version, or even if you have and just haven’t heard it in a while, I highly recommend putting on some headphones and taking the time to enjoy it. I also love how you can hear either Noel (Redding) or Mitch yelling in the background, like Mick Jagger‘s reactions to Merry Clayton‘s vocals on Gimme Shelter.

Audio – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYxfOxjswxc

Olympic Studios version – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxfuQ8a5gwA

Live (Only live show recording I could find) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqLr2T9N5p8