Children of the Wasteland

“But like the solar system is going through a change soon and it’s going to affect the Earth in about 30 years, you know, I am talking about the Earth itself.”

-Jimi Hendrix (San Diego Free Press, June 1969)

The connection between Music and the mysteries of the Universe has always been an intrinsic one. This video lead me to hunt down some articles on artists who have had UFO encounters. Probably the weirdest would be the Jimi Hendrix story related below.

From Alien Rock by Sean Casteel:

Knight told Beckley a remarkable story about Hendrix, an event that happened a few years before Hendrix became the legendary and much beloved guitar hero.

“It was during the wintertime,” Beckley said, “and they were playing a small gig in upstate New York, near Woodstock. This was before the Woodstock Festival, so it has nothing to do with that, except as a point of location. It was not very far from Pinebush, where there’s been a lot of UFO activity in the last few decades.

“Anyway, as I understand it from Curtis,” Beckley continued, “there was a very snowy blizzard and the boys in the band were trying to get back to Manhattan. They got snowed in. It was so cold outside that they couldn’t even open a window. The windows had frozen. They had the engine still running, and the carbon monoxide filled the car. A couple of the other guys passed out in the backseat, but Jimi was still able to breathe apparently, and he claimed that a cone-shaped object landed on the road not far from their vehicle. A door opened on the side of the craft and a being came out. He described it as kind of like a cross between a feathered creature, maybe like Mothman, and an angel.

“This thing drew its wings out and walked around the vehicle, and where it walked, the snow melted. So they were able to get out of the blizzard and get back to New York. Jimi always told Curtis that if it wasn’t for this being coming from the ship, he was sure that they would have all died in that car that night.”

1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)

Hooray, I awake from yesterday
Alive, but the war is here to stay
So my love, Catherina and me,
decide to take our last walk
through the noise to the sea
Not to die but to reborn,
away from lands so battered and torn
Forever, forever

Oh say, can you see
it’s really such a mess
Every inch of Earth is a fighting nest
Giant pencil and lipstick
tube shaped things,
Continue to rain
and cause screaming pain
And the arctic stains from silver blue
to bloody red
as our feet find the sand, and the sea
is straight ahead, straight up ahead

Well it’s too bad THAT our friends,
can’t be with us today
Well it’s too bad

The machine, THAT we built, would never save us, that’s what they say
(That’s why they ain’t coming with us today)
And they also said “it’s impossible for a man to live and breathe under water, forever,”
was their main complaint. And they also threw this in my face, they said:
“Anyway, you know good and well it would be beyond the will of God, and the grace of the King”
(grace of the King … Yeah, yeah)

So my darling and I make love in the sand, to salute the last moment ever on dry land
Our machine, it has done its work, played its part well.
Without a scratch on our bodies and we bid it farewell
Starfish and giant foams greet us with a smile
Before our heads go under we take a last look at the killing noise
Of the out of style, the out of style, out of style (oooh)…

“Right this way,” smiles a mermaid — I can hear Atlantis full of cheer.