Rock Origins: “Smoke On The Water”

If you've ever picked up a guitar and tried to play any song, it's likely the first three tunes you felt the urge to play were 'Stairway to Heaven,' 'Sweet Home Alabama,'  and Deep Purple's classic rock excursion 'Smoke On The Water.' It's no wonder 'Smoke' is a guitar player's dream--awesome opening riff, fiery leads, and enough wattage to blow out your mama's livingroom speakers.

But the words? Well, that's a different story. "Funky Claude"? "Some stupid with a flare gun"? What does it meannnn, man?

Turns out, the song tells the story of Deep Purple's bleary-eyed trip through Montreaux, Switzerland in December of 1971. Deep Purple took a break from recording to watch Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention gig at the Montreaux Casino.

Take it away, Wikipedia:

In the middle of Don Preston's synthesizer solo on "King Kong", the place suddenly caught fire when somebody in the audience fired a flare gun into the rattan covered ceiling, as mentioned in the "some stupid with a flare gun" line.

And there you have it. Once again, the infinite wisdom of Wikipedia comes to the rescue.