Talk:List of songs recorded by Jimi Hendrix

All songs or Studio recordings?

A good start for a very useful list. I added some general refs, so it won't get tagged. Regarding the organization: several songs listed in the table headed "Studio recordings" only have live recordings and the "Original release" shows a live album. Also, under "Other release(s)", some albums are listed which have live versions and/or demo versions and not the studio song shown in "Original release". Should the heading "Studio recordings" be removed (the lead says "all songs by ..."). Or maybe add a separate "Live recordings" table? —Ojorojo (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Removed "Studio recordings" heading, since it doesn't reflect the chart entries. Added to lead, see Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Style Lead. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Over the years, more than 50 singles and EPs have been issued with previously released songs (on singles or on albums). To list them all under "Other release(s)" seems to be unnecessary detail. The songs appearances on albums are more noteworthy (and the albums are linked to WP articles). I changed the column heading to "Other release(s) on albums" and removed the later singles and EPs. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:23, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Single/posthumous singles highlighting

Two background colors are used to highlight Hendrix's songs that were released as singles: a pinkish color for those released during his lifetime and a greenish one for posthumous releases. Since the "Song" column is the widest in the chart (and sometimes long), the colored entries overshadow the others and produce a jarring, unbalanced look (along with the choice of colors). Except for three pre-debut album singles in the UK and "All Along the Watchtower", Hendrix was primarily known for his albums. Many of the posthumous releases are specialty or promotional singles that were issued in very small numbers and did not attract much attention.

Placing so much visual emphasis on his singles does not aid in better understanding his song catalogue. In addition to the background colors, a † and ‡ are used to identify the lifetime and posthumous singles. These should be sufficient to identify singles and the use of background color is redundant. Propose to remove the colors and leave the less intrusive symbols. If there are no objections, I'll go ahead and implement the change.
—Ojorojo (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Featured list preparation

[Pertinent discussion should be included here (copied from User talk:Ojorojo/Archive 8#Hendrix)]: —Ojorojo (talk) 15:13, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey Ojorojo. First off, congrats on bringing "Achilles Last Stand" to GA, love that song. Anyways, I was wondering if you'd wanna start working on Hendrix's song list again? It's been a couple of months and I have some ideas on what we could do to expand it (and to settle some differences we've had, particularly regarding "Third Stone" and "If 6 Was 9") but if you're not ready I totally understand. :-) – zmbro _(talk) 23:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking of starting on it again after I finish up a couple of things. An earlier version had separate entries for very different names, which I thought was helpful for readers who are not that familiar with his work:

"Instrumental Solo"

• see "Villanova Junction"

"Jam Back at the House"

• see "Beginning"

etc., etc. It would remove the confusion for some who expected to find "Third Stone" under "3rd Stone" or vice versa. BTW, italics for AllMusic has some discussion and a RfC. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

That might be a good idea, especially for titles that aren't similar (like "Instrumental Solo" and "Villanova Junction" like you mentioned). Here are some of my thoughts on what we could do:

• I think for the different song titles, we should use its best-known title. I checked back to the last edit before I started editing the page and with "Third Stone", it seems that every album and release that was mentioned in the last col use "Third" and not "3rd" as the title (same for "If 6 Was 9" vs. "If Six Was Nine")
• Going along with that, I think we should use notes rather than "aka". I know that seems like that will make it too cluttered with notes but I think saying something like (for "Third Stone"): "The song was titled "3rd Stone from the Sun" on the original UK release of Are You Experienced" or something like that. Make sense?

I have more thoughts but I'd rather hear your thoughts on that first rather than bombard you with too many things. :-) – zmbro _(talk) 19:13, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Proving what is the original title is much easier than what is the most popular. The WP article is titled "Foxy Lady", although it seems "Foxey Lady" is more popular (the American Reprise Are You Experienced song titles seem to have won out). [Actually, several UK reissues still use "Foxy", but also use "Third Stone";[1] these 2010–2014 US reissues use "3rd Stone"[2][3][4][5][6] I suppose if one looks hard enough, either spelling seems popular] Others are frequently changed in song and album articles to what the editor happens to feel is the "correct" title, probably based on the source where they first saw it: "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" vs "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)", "Voodoo Child", "Voodoo Chile"; "Power to Love" vs "Power of Soul" vs "With the Power"; "Message of Love" vs "Message to Love"; "Come On" vs "Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)". It is much easier to point to the original release than argue "it was more popular in the UK because it reached No.1". Also Hendrix sometimes recorded slightly different versions of the same songs. Is "Look Over Yonder" more popular than "Mr. Bad Luck" or should they both have entries linked to the albums that they appear on? With two entries, there would be no reason for someone to change one to something they like better.

As a compromise, I suggest 1) adding a second entry for significantly different titles (following the above examples); 2) moving more similar variations to footnotes instead of a.k.a.; 3) removing the space between the title and the hash tags and daggers and use superscript so they line up better with the increased use of footnotes and look less cluttered. That's it for now. I sure I'll come up with more. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:33, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Ojorojo I'm good with that. It's shocking to me how complicated his song titles are, pretty much the only artist I've heard of with really complicated titles. Based on what you're saying, I think it makes sense to use the original, especially with "Third Stone"; both the Apple Music and Spotify versions of Are You Experienced use "Third Stone" as the title, but since you've found other 2010s reissues that use "3rd", it really goes either way. I'd still prefer to use "Third", mainly since that's how its WP article is titled, but I'm good with using "3rd", since it's really 50/50 between the two, and since "3rd" was the original UK title. With "Foxy Lady", Apple Music and Spotify use "Foxey Lady" as the title, which makes things more complicated. Due to this, I'd honestly say the original title is the best way to go about it.

• "Third Stone" can be given an entry with "see '3rd Stone'" (with an explanatory footnote and ref) because they're so far apart. Someone looking for "Foxey" will see "Foxy" in the same place, with a footnote: "Foxy Lady" was retitled "Foxey Lady" and included on the US edition of Are You Experienced [ref]

Now that we've settled the title dispute, here are some of my other thoughts I had regarding the table alone:

• We should have both liner notes sourced for the US and UK versions of Are You Experienced (mainly where they apply), since they were both drastically different. You already know that "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe", and "The Wind Cries Mary" were on the US version and not the UK while others like "Red House" and "Remember" were on the UK and not the US (so we would ref the US for "Purple Haze" etc. and the UK for "Red House", etc. and both for "Foxy Lady"). Make sense?

• OK. They can be added as footnotes: "Non-album single (UK)^[a] → ^[a] "Purple Haze" is included on the US edition of Are You Experienced [ref]". For refs we can use Shapiro, who shows the UK vs US albums, as well as the release dates that now one must infer from the tiny copyright date on the UK releases (the first few US releases have no dates).

• For singles, I think we could save a little space. For example, for B-sides such as "51st Anniversary", we could just say ""B-side of "Purple Haze" (UK)" (I did the same thing for Coldplay's song list). For A-sides or non-album singles, we could just say "Non-album single" (so only one line is used instead of two)

• OK, see the above. However, instead of all grouped under "single" in a sort, they would appear in two different places, which is why I set it up that way.

• We should mention the fact that "Purple Haze" and "Hey Joe" were released on the US versions of Are You Experienced, and the fact that "All Along the Watchtower" was on Electric Ladyland (only a month after the US single). Basically, singles that were also on albums I think should be noted.

• OK, also see the above.

• Very minor and not that big of a deal but we should probably say "Jimi Hendrix" in the writer col every time as after nominating so many song lists for FL, I bet a reviewer will say it should be full name anyways.

• I followed WP:ALBUMSTYLE#Track listing "Note the standard method of attributing songwriters—write (and link) the full name the first time it appears, and then just give the last name", which is intended to prevent needless repetition. Looks more professional, IMO. Alternatively, we could use rowspan (see test on first few[7]).

These are just some more of my thoughts for the table alone. I'd love to know what you think :-) – zmbro _(talk) 19:28, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Making progress! —Ojorojo (talk) 19:03, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Ojorojo Definitely! I think we should start work on the table before we start giving thoughts on the lead so we can do things one at a time. I can work on the footnoting and the single stuff in the release col and perhaps you could do the sourcing? (I, unfortunately, don't have access to many Hendrix books so I can't do much there). That ok? – zmbro _(talk) 00:31, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I've made the first round of changes (1966–1969). Moving the a.k.a.s to efns does give the title column a cleaner look; I hope readers will actually look at them, before deciding that a title is wrong. Similarly, the "Non-album single" designation may confuse some people if they don't bother to read the efns. The way it is used in the Coldplay list appears to be for singles that never appeared on an album (except maybe for anthologies). So far for Hendrix though, they were added to "studio albums" not too long after their release. Maybe just "Single (UK)" or "Single (UK)" would be sufficient. —Ojorojo (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

You have a point. We could do that instead, or maybe "UK single" and "US single"? – zmbro _(talk) 01:17, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

The table has been updated following the discussion for far. I'm wondering about the Douglas-produced hatchet jobs on Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning. Most of the songs have been restored close to the originals and maybe identifying these as the "original releases" would in fact be truer (with efns mentioning the earlier Douglas releases).

I went ahead and changed these as well as those on Nine to the Universe. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Some thoughts for the lead:

• Hendrix's songs introduced a new style of guitar-dominated hard and psychedelic rock, typified by "Purple Haze", "Voodoo Child", and "Machine Gun". He explored several new combinations of guitar- and sound processing-effects and achieving a particular sound was an important part of his creation of a song.
• He never abandoned his R&B roots, as heard in the slower, more melodic "Little Wing", "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)", and "Drifting". With the Band of Gypsys, he incorporated early funk elements, with hard rock and jamming, which later became known as funk rock (e.g. "Who Knows").
• His post-Band of Gypsys recordings show a more developed style, with a more integrated mix of hard rock with R&B elements and multiple guitar parts on "Freedom", "Ezy Ryder", "Dolly Dagger", and "Hey Baby". His lyrical themes also reflected "a Jimi Hendrix who felt an increasing need to impart his compassionate vision of human potentiality [and a] move away from cynicism and bitterness".[Shapiro p. 140]
• Two of his best known songs were written by others; his interpretations of "Hey Joe" and "All Along the Watchtower" gave them a much different character than the originals. He chose Dylan more than any other songwriter. For live performances, he adapted several older blues songs by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, and B.B. King and early rock and roll numbers by Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. He also performed some more contemporary rock songs, such as "Wild Thing", "Gloria", "Day Tripper", "Sgt.Pepper's", "Dear Mr. Fantasy", and "Sunshine of Your Love". His radical interpretation of the "Star Spangled Banner" was a highlight of the Woodstock film.
• Although he toured and mostly recorded as a three piece, several songs on Electric Ladyland and Cry of Love featured additional musicians. He was fond of jamming and several of the post-1980 albums contain songs that are largely jams with various players (Nine to the Universe, and the Dagger Records releases Morning Symphony Ideas, Hear My Music, Burning Desire). Jamming was integral to his songwriting process.

—Ojorojo (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I think those would work well, they'll obviously need more refs but the main idea is there. Since many publications rank Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time, I think it'd be important to note that. How long did you want to make it? We could easily make it as long as his main article's lead but I'd be good with matching the length of his discography leads. Right now I'm blanking on what else I think could be added but the overall gist is definitely there. I add more ideas when I think of some. – zmbro _(talk) 00:42, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no hurry. I think a list should be able to largely stand on its own and that a long, overly detailed lead and picture gallery is distracting. According to WP:SALLEAD "A stand-alone list should begin with a lead section that summarizes its content, provides any necessary background information, gives encyclopedic context, [etc.]" The leads for the Hendrix article and discographies are appropriate for those articles, but I think a shorter lead would work better here (now that the organization/structure commentary is left out). The ideas included above are heavy on examples to give some background on specific points, but most should not be included.

The Beatles list (which you are involved with) takes an interesting approach in using separate tables for the "Main songs" and "Other songs", which may be appropriate for Hendrix. The songs he is best known for were released during his lifetime, plus maybe some from his proposed fourth studio album (compiled on First Rays of the New Rising Sun, but first released in 1971). The rest of his posthumous catalogue does not rise to this level (note that there are practically no song articles for after Rainbow Bridge, except covers). Rather than get too detailed, I'd like to hear your ideas. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah that Beatles list will eventually be FL but I'm struggling with the lead for the time being. Seeing it in its original state was completely unacceptable to me. Eventually I decided that their main songs should be separate from everything else as their primary 200-ish songs are what people remember most. Plus, no one is gonna think of "12-Bar Original" or "If You've Got Trouble" when you hear "the Beatles". For Hendrix, we could possibly do two separate tables, one for pre-death and one post-death. I also personally think we should note what songs were the Experience (I think I did that when I added all the refs back in December), but if we make two separate tables, we probably won't need that, since basically every song he released before his death were with the Experience (except Band of Gypsys).

You make a good point regarding the length. We should definitely write about his guitar prowess and the primary genres he worked with; we could also mention the Experience and the Band of Gypsys. I personally liked the examples you put above; would need some copy-editing and refs but I think the overall gist is good. To me it's most important to discuss his guitar sound that really elevated most of his songs to the legendary status they are known for, esp. "Purple Haze", "Little Wing" (my personal favs), and "Machine Gun", as well as his elevation of "All Along the Watchtower", which only came a mere six months after Dylan's original. I'm getting off on a tangent but I think you got the main idea. :-) – zmbro _(talk) 00:35, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, similarly with "Untitled Basic Track". Separating the two at pre-/post-death is the most obvious. Although they were issued under "Jimi Hendrix Experience", a significant number of songs on Axis and Electric Ladyland did not include Redding, so technically they were not "songs recorded by the Experience". Additionally, trying to identify which posthumous releases are "Experience" is tricky (all the songs on disc 4 and several others on the JHE box are not by the Experience, and there are several Experience songs spread out across many other releases). Also, the group that played Woodstock was informally "Gypsy, Sun and Rainbows", rather than the Experience.

I started on separating the tables. I've also made a couple of changes: "Original album release", with singles highlighted in blue (with refs & efns). I was thinking of naming the sections "Main songs" and "Posthumously released songs"; "Songs released during Hendrix's lifetime" or "... before he died" look awkward and "Other songs" is more ambiguous. Or "Songs released 1966–1970" and "...1971–present". Suggestions?

—Ojorojo (talk) 15:10, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

The original Beatles song list used "album debut" rather than "original release" and I went off of that when developing that list for over a year until I decided that really only the primary albums and Past Masters are the only ones that are actually relevant. I think doing "original album release" here would be good, as that also makes the conflict we had about how singles should be styled a while ago obsolete. The only problem I see is in the second table; some songs are still marked as singles and I personally don't know if they were released on any albums so that might be an issue. Other things I see is that some notes are still missing refs but other than that the tables are almost done. I think "Songs released during his lifetime (1966–1970)" and "Songs released posthumously (1971–present)" should do fine. I do wonder how FLC reviewers will react to the tables being separated but between us I think it makes sense. – zmbro _(talk) 19:29, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

So far, "12 Bar with Horns" is a non-album single and "Peace" is on a box set reissue. I'll make the changes, add refs, and move it to the article space. BTW, there can only be on ToC per article and it links to the first anchor (see Help talk:Section#Multiple Template:Compact ToC on the same page). I'll leave it in for now. Some explanatory text preceding each table should make it clear for readers and reviewers. That can be done with the new lead. —Ojorojo (talk) 19:52, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the tables are completed and added a 2nd ToC by not using {{Compact ToC}}. I'm going to take a break before tackling the lead and section intros. If you want to start on a draft, I can get a better idea of where you want to head with this. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:58, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Alright sounds like a plan, like you said earlier, there's no rush. I'll try to get some ideas down in my sandbox in the meantime. Getting some great progress, should be an FL in no time. :-) – zmbro _(talk) 20:52, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@Zmbro: Any more thoughts on the lead and section intros? I'm about ready to work on this. We can use your or my sandbox or create a new one. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:06, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I started here (I'll add the refs later after it's revised). Thoughts? —Ojorojo (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Ojorojo Looks really good so far. Would you care if I did some copy-editing on your sandbox or would you rather me move it to mine and make some edits there? Whichever you prefer. I won't be able to make any edits until tonight. – zmbro _(talk) 18:06, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Edit my sandbox if it's easier. I moved the album mentions to the sections, which may be unorthodox. However, it does free up the lead to focus on songs and styles (maybe too many blues names/numbers?). Again, no hurry – Rome wasn't burned down in a day. —Ojorojo (talk) 20:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

It's getting better. Some points to consider:

• Since Hendrix often recorded several takes, alternate versions, and live performances, the total number of songs is far greater than 170. I used "different" to exclude these and hope it's still understood.
• When Hendrix finally played on Monday morning, there were only about 20–30K people left by some estimates. Since the vast majority of festival goers didn't see him, saying that "SSB" was a highlight of the festival is a stretch.
• The unfinished fourth album article has a lot of problems (OR, SYNTH, MOS, lack of inline citations), which is why I didn't link it.
• The revised "three-piece" sentence changes the point. The Experience, Band of Gypsys, and the "Cry of Love Tour" configurations were all three-piece combos. Hendrix often had additional musicians (other than Redding, Mitchell, Cox, Miles) record: members of Traffic show up on several tracks, background vocalists, percussionists, keyboardists, etc. This was the lead-in to jamming. If you want keep the focus on songs, but mention JHE and BoG, maybe note that Redding wrote two pop-ish songs, Miles two soul/R&B-style songs which they both sang and Mitchell wrote an instrumental.

As suggested, I'll add to the live recordings. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:20, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I switched the second and third paragraphs and made some tweaks to hopefully provide a conclusion of sorts. I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but the majority of his recorded songs are now posthumous releases. It might serve as a lead-in to the split lists. Edit away. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:07, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@Zmbro: Anything to add or remove? I have refs for everything, except the "part of the sixties Zeitgeist" quote. I'll add them after the final revisions. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Ojorojo I think everything looks good. Although do you think we should add a paragraph about all the different titles? Thinking about it, I think it would be nice considering there are over 40 notes just about different titles alone. But I would be fine with it as is, it's up to you. – zmbro _(talk) 16:56, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

@Zmbro: I added a paragraph, but it looks like an afterthought. I'll start adding the refs and move the lead and intros to the list. There will probably be more fine tuning when we see how it looks all put together. —Ojorojo (talk) 18:08, 25 August 2019 (UTC)