Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division; he was granted an honorable discharge the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after being discovered by Linda Keith, who in turn interested bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals in becoming his first manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the U.S. after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the U.S.; it was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world's highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, before his accidental death from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970, at the age of 27.
Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in utilizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock, and was the first artist to use stereophonic phasing effects in music recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began."
Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year, and in 1968, Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked the band's three studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland, among the 100 greatest albums of all time, and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time.
Killin
Jimi Hendrix Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Long time ago
I should've quit you baby
Long time ago, yes I should
But you got me messin' round with you baby
You got me cryin' on a killin' floor, yeah
If I don't follow, yeah
If I don't follow pretty baby
My first mind
I would have been gone since my second time, yeah
Lord knows, right now
I should've been gone
Lord knows, I should've been gone
You got me messsin' round with you baby
You got me cryin' on a killin' floor
Yeah, that's all
Ooh, you got me cryin' baby
Ooh, you got me cryin'
Jimi Hendrix’s Killin’ Floor is a blues classic that offers a lifetime of insight into a troubled romance. The lyrics of the song reflect a lost love, and the bitterness that leaves people unable to let go. The opening line, ‘I should've quit you, long time ago,’ indicates that the singer should have left his partner a long time ago. The singer implies that they are involved in an unhealthy relationship that is destroying them emotionally. Despite knowing that leaving the partner would have been the right thing to do, the singer cannot resist the temptation of being with the partner. The lyrics, ‘But you got me messing 'round with you, baby, you got me cryin' on a killin' floor,' indicate that the partner holds an irresistible allure that is impossible to let go of.
In the second verse, the singer realizes that he has ignored his gut feeling too long, and he knows he should have been gone earlier. However, the partner's influence is too strong, and he admits that he has stayed far too long. The line, ‘If I don't follow pretty baby, my first mind, I would have been gone since my second time, yeah,’ suggests that his instincts have told him to leave his partner since the second time they got together. The singer regrets not listening to his gut feelings from the beginning, and now his heart is irreversibly damaged.
Finally, in the last verse, the singer acknowledges that his relationship has ruined him. He knows that staying with the partner is not worth it, but he is too far gone to get out. He reminds his partner that she is the cause of his emotional destruction with the lines, ‘You got me messin' round with you baby, you got me cryin' on a killin' floor, yeah, that's all.’ The last lines, ‘Ooh, you got me cryin' baby, ooh, you got me cryin',’ further emphasize the power that the partner has and the emotional pain that the singer is going through.
Line by Line Meaning
I should've quit you
I should have ended our relationship
Long time ago
A while back
I should've quit you baby
I should have stopped seeing you
But you got me messin' round with you baby
You have caught me in your trap and I cannot escape
You got me cryin' on a killin' floor, yeah
You have made me so miserable that I feel like I am on a killing floor, with no escape in sight
If I don't follow, yeah
If I don't listen to my instincts
My first mind
My intuition
If I don't follow pretty baby
If I don't trust my gut
My first mind
My inner voice
I would have been gone since my second time, yeah
I would have ended things between us the second time we were together
Lord knows, right now
I understand now
I should've been gone
I should have left you already
You got me messsin' round with you baby
You have me under your spell and I can't break free
Yeah, that's all
That's the situation I'm currently in
Ooh, you got me cryin' baby
You have brought me to tears
Ooh, you got me cryin'
You have made me emotional
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@FIVE-0-APOCALYPTO
Well let's face it it's sort of like the offensive line on a football team and across the board it's a thankless job but the people that understand it really appreciate it and a bassist across the board never really does get the credit they deserve but I hear you I love that little thump up and up and up and up while Jimmy was adjusting the knobs at the beginning and just kind of casually strolling around.....dude, i hear yuh man.
I'm not going to name all of them on the almond Brothers but if you listen to all the various mountain jams between 1969 and 1973, it took a few years but all the sudden one day with that 28 minute long one they did at the Atlanta Pop festival mountain jam song, it hit me on the bass part like a ton of bricks and I've been hooked ever since.
I never liked to say which is a favorite but we all got them particular songs where they really do it just right and it all comes together just right and then we find that it's not just us who likes it so what I was going to say was another real good one is the Nassau coliseum mountain jam that one is 31 minutes and the base solo portion.....come on, lol, i mean really? They really did a good job of taping it it's so nice and clear I mean like compared to some other stuff unfortunately but I don't care either way that's fine I appreciate it on out of this world levels cuz no matter what I always got my music, but as the bass solo transitions annnnnnd LAMARRRR WILLIAMS... And how it's seamlessly transitions into the organ piano and the way he's hitting them notes for me... That is really connecting with my particular vibration and I mean like, it fixes me up all brand new and stuff and all I got to do is have some battery power and some fingers to press play on the phone screen and it's the gift that keeps on giving.... And then boom... The next song because I got them all randomized might be some of that Duane Allman doing that's all right Mama with the grateful Dead..... I don't know I mean it's like you got all these different songs schemes on a damn phone and it's hard to say which one actually gets better and better....mannn i tell yuh.
Of course it's the end of the world because since then I don't know what happened, I don't know where there's any more music for real,; these guys here all signified the beginning of the end, and I don't care necessarily if it's not really people's fault these days that you got a specter out there killing everybody's spirit, there's always that option of saying f you and just start punching whatever in front of you, but it's that spirit, it's a crime to abandon at least that much you know?
They can never kill an idea but somehow they managed it because it's obvious everyone allowed it to happen but not me but I'm not a musician. I went out there at a young age and turned it all around and grabbed a shovel and I took that instrument to the highest level I could... IT WASN'T ME LOSING NO SPIRIT.
NOT ME......not me.
@MarleneJohnson-ps9pk
Hendrix's Killing floor intro is unmatched by any guitarist during any time period. Who is left that can play at this level? no one.
@angelaburton2170
Philip sauce and Chris Duarte are 2 off the top of my head that can
@guitarmanrommel3865
Best improvised intro of this classic tune ever!🎵☮️💙
@billsanders6772
I got to see Hendrix twice when I was younger. First time opening for the Monkees in Charlotte, NC and the 2nd time at the 2nd Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia July 1970 about 6 weeks or so before he died (tragic thing)! I was 17 and rode my motorcycle to the festival between my junior and senior year. I am a bass player then and now (played with Artimus Pyle Band) and have owned a Sound Productions business since 1990! I still get excited and love live music to this day!!
@anthonyrichard461
Holy Smoke. I used to play Led Zeppelin's Lemon Song which is really this Song The Killing Floor. Also played the original version but this was awesome.
@Rainydaydreamaway7
That windmill in the intro is some of the coldest shit you’ll ever see. Effortless mastery, you can’t fake that kind of cool
@darrylturner2611
Tanner you are spot on Jimi was too fucin cool!!
@risteardohaodha23
'We're going to mess around and jam. You would't know the difference anyway." It's well documented that Jimi was forced by management to do this tour with the Experience even though he was musically done with that format and bored out of his mind with the "oldies but badies", thus his dourer demure. They still manage to kick ass with Killing Floor though!
@carloseugeniocarlos4287
the man that makes a guitar sings.Jimi Hendrix is the guy.Rest in peace.
@SuperLordHawHaw
The bass here is killing it too