Top 5 Songs Whose Meaning Eluded Us

The Jimi Hendrix Experience-"Purple Haze"
And excerpt from The Set List: Top 5 Songs Whose Meaning Eluded Us
By Nathan G. O'Brien on Scene Point Blank

Okay, maybe this one has been done to death, but in 6th grade I really did think he said "Excuse me while I kiss this guy." And it wasn't so much the meaning of that one line that eluded me, as much as it was the whole song. But mostly I just wanted to know what the heck purple haze was.  I liked Prince, but if it was anything like purple rain, that would have only added to my confusion.  I had no idea (and still don't) what that’s all about.  I asked my mother what purple haze was.  She told me it was a Jimi Hendrix song. Ahh, gee mom, thanks for the help.  So I asked my dad one day while we were driving across country.  He had been to Woodstock; certainly he must know.  He replied, "Purple Haze? Ahh, it's an acid rock thing.  You won't understand now, but you will someday."  He paused for a moment, as if having a flashback, and then continued, "It's, you know, really head-y stuff."  And as he said this he lifted one hand from the stearing wheel to the side of his head and made an egg-beater motion. Err, okay?  I eventually moved on to punk rock and rap, and forgot about Hendrix or "Purple Haze" or any "head-y stuff" until several years later.  One night in a nebulous college dorm room with Jimi on the stereo I finally figured it all out.  Ohhh, he's saying “THE SKY," not "this guy." And at that very moment, about an hour into my first experience with a mind-altering acronym—kissing the sky, if you will—I finally figured it all out.  "Purple haze all in my brain..." 

See what else made the list after the leap.