Third Stone from the Sun

"Third Stone from the Sun", spelled "3rd Stone from the Sun" on the first British pressing, is the long instrumental on Are You Experienced, broken only by slowed-down spoken passages. The title is Earth, the third planet out, and the dialogue is a parody of alien explorers who decide the cackling hen is the planet's most impressive animal, dismiss its people and resolve to destroy it. Hendrix and his producer Chas Chandler shared a taste for science fiction; the writer Harry Shapiro has suggested the chicken line nods to Louis Jordan's "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens".

It took four tries. A demo at CBS Studios in London on December 13, 1966 was left unfinished after a dispute over the studio fee, takes at De Lane Lea on January 11, 1967 produced no master, work resumed at Olympic on April 4 and was largely replaced by overdubs, and the master was finished there on April 10 with the spoken parts, effects and final mix. Hendrix plays guitar and the alien voice, Noel Redding holds a three-note bass figure through the second section, Mitch Mitchell drums, Chandler speaks the other part and Eddie Kramer engineered, panning Mitchell's cymbals forward across the four tracks while Hendrix moved his headphones around a microphone for the whispering and breathing. The music opens on guitar chords, carries a melody in octaves in E Mixolydian with jazz in its drumming and phrasing, drops into a bluesy middle, breaks into feedback worked with the Stratocaster's switches and vibrato arm, and fades on a heavier return.

Track issued it in Britain on May 12, 1967 in mono, with an extra spoken line, and Reprise in the United States on August 23 in stereo. It has turned up on the 1982 "Voodoo Chile" twelve-inch, The Singles Album, Re-Experienced, The Essential Jimi Hendrix, Kiss the Sky and the 2001 Voodoo Child collection, and the 2000 box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience carries a version with different, unprocessed dialogue. Hendrix played it at Blaise's club in London in December 1966, worked its melody into "Spanish Castle Magic" at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto after his arrest there in May 1969, and Steven Roby identifies one 1969 concert as the only complete recorded performance; no live version has been officially released. Stevie Ray Vaughan played it, on the El Mocambo video and on Power of Soul, and its melody is quoted in the Amboy Dukes' "Baby, Please Don't Go", Cozy Powell's "Dance with the Devil" and Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy". The upload in the hypersongs web is the album recording on the label's own channel.