Smoke on the Water
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"Smoke on the Water" is a famous and influential rock song by Deep Purple. It was first released on the album Machine Head.
Composition
- [Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water"] ([file info])
- *
- * Problems listening to the file? See [Media helpmedia help].
The song is known for and recognizable by its central theme, a crunching four-note 'blues scale' melody harmonised in parallel fourths that is perhaps the single most famous riff in hard rock history. The riff, played on electric guitar by Ritchie Blackmore, is immediately joined by drums and electric bass parts before the start of Ian Gillan's vocal. In the second part of the song when the riff is repeated once again Jon Lord doubles the guitar part on a Hammond organ played through a distorted Marshall guitar amp creating a very similar tone to the guitar. Blackmore uses two fingers to pluck so the pairs of notes can be played exactly simultaneously to match the organ's timing more closely. Despite the heaviness of the main riff, constant movement and interplay within the supporting parts keeps the feel of the song from becoming leaden. The use of the riff only as an interlude between the vocal sections (which feature quite different parts) prevents it from becoming overly repetitive and creates excitement when it re-enters. The song's structure takes a contrasting verse-chorus form, with the driving verse sections building musical tension while the soaring chorus releases it.
History
The lyrics of the song tells a true story: on December 7, 1971, Deep Purple had set up camp at Montreux, Switzerland to record an album using a mobile recording studio (rented from the Rolling Stones and known as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio) at the entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux Casino (referred to as "the gambling house" in the song lyric). On the eve of the recording session a concert featuring Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention was held in the casino's theatre; during the concert a fire broke out (said to be caused by a Swiss fan shooting a flare gun in the ceiling, as mentioned in the "some stupid with a flare gun" line) that eventually destroyed the entire casino complex, along with all the Mothers' equipment. The "smoke on the water" that became the title of the song (credited to bass player Roger Glover, who related how the title occurred to him when he suddenly woke from a dream a few days later) referred to the smoke from the fire spreading over Lake Geneva from the burning casino as the members of Deep Purple watched the fire from their hotel across the lake. The "funky Claude" running in and out is referring to Claude Nobs, the director of the Montreux Jazz Festival who helped some of the audience to escape the fire.
Left with an expensive mobile recording unit and no place to record, the band was forced to scout the town for another place to set up. One promising venue (found by Nobs) was a local theatre called The Pavilion, but soon after the band had loaded in and started working/recording, the nearby neighbors took offense at the noise, and the band was only able to lay down backing tracks for only one song before the local police shut them down.
Finally, after about a week of searching, the band rented out the nearly-empty Montreux Grand Hotel and converted its hallways and stairwells into a makeshift recording studio, where they laid down most of the tracks for what would become their most successful album, Machine Head.
Ironically, the only song from Machine Head not recorded in the Grand Hotel was "Smoke on the Water" itself; the basic tracks for the song had been the only things recorded during the aborted Pavilion session.
Impact
"Smoke on the Water" was included on Machine Head, which was released in early 1972, but was not released as a single until nearly a year later (the band has said that they did not expect the song to be a hit); the single would reach #4 on the Billboard pop single chart in the U.S. in the summer of 1973, and propel the album to the top 10. Live performance of the tune, featuring extended interplay between Blackmore's guitar and Jon Lord's Hammond organ would become a centerpiece of Deep Purple's live shows, and a version of the song from the live album Made in Japan became a minor hit on its own later in 1973.During Ian Gillan's stint with Black Sabbath in 1983, they performed "Smoke on the Water" as a regular repertoire number on encores during their only tour together.
Trivia
- "Smoke on the Water" is one of the playable songs for the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero.
- It is also a playable song in the PlayStation 2 game SingStar Rocks.
- Robb Nen, a former baseball player for the San Francisco Giants and Florida Marlins, used the song as his entrance music
- The video game Primal Rage has a song on Sauron's level that sounds suspiciously like Smoke on The Water.
- "Smoke on the Water" has received the following rankings:
- * #37 in VH1's Top 40 Metal Songs
- * #1 in Digital Dreamdoor's 100 Greatest Rock Guitar Riffs
- * #12 in Q magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks (March 2005)
- In School of Rock, Dewey Finn (Jack Black) teaches "Smoke on the Water" to Zach Mooneyham.
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