The unexpected disappearance of Jimi Hendrix gave the impression that a star had been taken from the night sky. When he saw him perform live, Pete Townshend described the trail he blazed as follows:
“That was a comic experience. He was like a shaman. It’s the only word I can use. I don’t know if it’s the right term. Light seemed to come out of him. He would walk onstage and suddenly he would explode into light.”
Sadly, the light was dimmed in the early hours of September 18, 1970. Its four-year burn time lends support to the proverb “the light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.” According to the official accounts, Hendrix asphyxiated after choking on his own vomit and died from a barbiturate overdose. Rock wept and, since then, hasn’t ceased being moved by his unmatched music.
He returned to his girlfriend Monika Dannemann after drinking till three in the morning and took 18 times the recommended dosage of her sleeping pills. These terrible lines from the poem he had also written that evening in her honor serve as a metaphor for the triumph over the grief that his work reflects.
Hendrix seems to have planned to turn his somber poetry into a soaring song, but Eric Burdon misunderstood it as a letter to himself to commit himself. These poignant last comments of the late great Jimi Hendrix are quoted:
“The story of Jesus/So easy to explain/After they crucified him/A woman, she claimed his name / […] The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye/The story of love is hello and goodbye, until we meet again.”
These are just the phrases that have been made public. There may be further stanzas, but they have never been made available to the public. The poem was allegedly composed in Dannemmann’s honor, and Hendrix gave it to her and remarked,
“I want you to keep this forever. I don’t want you to forget anything that is written. It’s a story about you and me.”
While that could seem like a bad omen, many who knew him and had firsthand knowledge of the events were confident that his death was only an error made by a wayward man. The last thing he said to him, according to his manager Chas Chandler, was that he “needed help” and wished to alter his erratic way of life.
So, after a wild night of partying, he composed this heartfelt poetry in the bathroom, which also proved to be his final act. There have been reams of articles published about it, but in the simplest terms, it can be said that he was much more than just a guitar god—not that his abilities required him to be anything else. His sentences have a strong spiritualism since he wanted to be like his idol, Bob Dylan. They demonstrate that his music soars because of the heart rather than technical prowess.