Deep Purple – Smoke on the water (album: Machine Head 1972)

This song is by Deep Purple. My hubby showed me how to play it on his electric guitar. I remember when I was a teenager all my friends and everyone around me loved this song. Every time I met someone that could play the guitar, this would be the first song he would play. I’ve also added the awesome cover version by Metallica.


Speaking of fire, when I was about 8 years old, I had a friend that was in the same class with me. She had a one year older brother that was very disturbed. One time I came over to play in my friend’s house and her brother walked into her room and he was playing with matches. He showed us how he can put off a match with his hand. At some point he turned to me and said “let’s see if you can do that as well” of course I wasn’t brainless and I knew how dangerous it is so I’ve refused. Then he said “I bet it’s because you are scared, you’re a chicken, I want to see you do that”. He put a lot of pressure on me and I was quite scared of him so I said I’ll do it. I was holding the match and my hand was getting near the burning match and then her brother shoved my hand towards the match and I’ve burned my hand. I was in a severe pain and I’ve cried a lot. He gave me a cotton ball and he told me not to tell anyone about it otherwise he will beat me to death. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I went home and I was too scared to tell my mum about it because I was afraid he will beat me up. So I’ve hidden it from her for 3 days. On the third day my mum noticed that I was hiding me hand and asked me what are you holding in your hand and of course I said nothing , finally she made me open my hand and she saw the burn that I got in my hand. She was in a complete shock, she started asking me how did that happen and I broke down and told her the whole story. She rang his mum and told her the story as well. His parents beat him up for what he did. The following day I was scared to go to school in case he will see me and bash me up. He never got near me since that day. That was the end of my friendship with this girl; I wasn’t allowed to be friends with her anymore. A few years later I heard this guy was doing time for a rape he had committed. And that’s how this criminal started his career… Anyway, check out this smoking song…

Link to the song: Smoke on the water Deep Purple



Lyrics: Smoke on the water Lyrics




What’s this song about?

This song is about a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland. The band was going to record their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa's show, which set the place on fire. The band was relocated to another hotel and recorded the album in the Rolling Stones mobile studio.

Info about the band: Wikipedia - Deep Purple