My poem “Hey, Joe” is now available at Chestnut Review.

I kill the engine, frazzled by “Hey, Joe,”
how Hendrix jimmied up this old folk tune
which still gets air time on the radio.

The poem actually happened as described – I pulled the car over and began jotting down the first lines on my phone as the song was still playing. I had long been intrigued by the song’s obscure origins, which are ably dealt with in this podcast episode of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. Before Hendrix recorded it in 1966, it had already been done memorably by the Byrds, Love, the Leaves and other L.A. bands of the mid-1960s. As far as I can tell, the ‘original‘ version was by Billy Roberts (no, not Leadbelly.)

I know so many songs like this
which rope you in to their worlds on the sly

then leave you panting with a little kiss
of blood. 

Art is complicated, and I’m not at all sure it should always make us comfortable. “Hey, Joe” is ear candy, but at its center is a dark tale of violence and misogyny (Joe gets away with murdering his woman for the ‘crime’ of running around with another man.) It seemed a worthy subject for a poem.

Here is an incredible live performance by the Jimi Hendrix Experience from 1967.