"If 6 Was 9" is a song written by

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and recorded by

the Jimi Hendrix Experience James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

. It was released on their second album '' Axis: Bold as Love'' (1967). It appeared on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

for the 1969 film ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

'' and the soundtrack for the 1991 film ''

Point Break ''Point Break'' is a 1991 American action crime film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by W. Peter Iliff. It stars Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty and Gary Busey. The film's title refers to the surfing term "point break", where ...

''.

Style and instrumentation

The style of the song has been referred to as "acid-fueled

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

". The

guitar solo A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular m ...

makes innovative use of studio technology for the time, with stereo panning from left to right and vice versa, along with other effects, such as slap echo,

fuzzbox Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, usually by increasing their gain, producing a "fuzzy", "growling", or "gritty" tone. Distortion is most commonly ...

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

, and

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...

Lyrics

Sara Pendergast described it as an "individualist anthem". The lyrics portray the underlying conflict of the

counterculture of the 1960s The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...

: the "social and cultural dichotomies" between the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

s and the "white collared conservative" business world of the establishment. Beginning with a blues riff, the lyrics accompany a "spacey" free-form jam, with Hendrix epitomizing the existentialist voice of the youth movement: "I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die/so let me live my life/the way I want to." Authors Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek believe the lyrics, "if the mountains fell into the sea" are a reference to the

creation myth A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop ...

of the second world of

Hopi mythology The Hopi maintain a complex religious and mythological tradition stretching back over centuries. However, it is difficult to definitively state what all Hopis as a group believe. Like the oral traditions of many other societies, Hopi mythology is ...

. Frank Waters' ''Book of the Hopi'' (1963) was known to have influenced Hendrix, and many of his songs contain mythological themes and images related to

Native Americans in the United States Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States ( Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of the United State ...

. Various

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

s based on

numerology Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...

have developed around the meaning of number 9 in the song and Hendrix's death in 1970.

Renditions

In 1991, Beautiful People adapted the song as "

If 60's Was 90's "If 60's Was 90's" is a song by Beautiful People. Recorded in 1991, the song was first released on their album ''If 60's Were 90's'' in 1992 but was not released as a single until 1994 after the success of "Rilly Groovy", charting at #74 on the UK ...

" for the album ''

If 60's Were 90's ''If 60's Were 90's'' is an album by techno-dance band Beautiful People featuring numerous samples from Jimi Hendrix songs. It spawned the hits "Rilly Groovy," which reached number three on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart and the title track "If ...

''. Written by group leader Du Kane, it reached 74 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and number five on the

Hot Dance Club Songs Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as t ...

chart.

Notes

References

* {{authority control Protest songs 1968 songs The Jimi Hendrix Experience songs American hard rock songs Songs written by Jimi Hendrix Song recordings produced by Chas Chandler