Smoke On The Water

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. See a photo of the fire in Song Images.

Frank Zappa, who is mentioned in the lyrics, lost all his equipment in the fire. He then broke his leg a few days later when a fan pulled him into the crowd at a show in England. This prompted Ian Gillan to say "Break a leg, Frank," into the microphone after recording this for a BBC special in 1972.

Deep Purple bass player Roger Glover came up with the image of smoke on the water. He thought it was a great title, but was reluctant to use it because it sounded like a drug song.

Ritchie Blackmore has an affinity for Renaissance music, which he writes and performs in his duo Blackmore's Night. He says that he first took an interest in the form in 1971 when he saw a BBC program called Wives of Henry VIII, and that there is indeed a trace of Renaissance in "Smoke On The Water." "The riff is done in fourths and fifths — a medieval modal scale," he explained on MySpace Music. "It makes it appear more dark and foreboding. Not like today's pop music thirds."

The band did not think this would be a hit and rarely played it live. It took off when they released it as a US single over a year after the album came out. Talking about the song's merits as live material, Roger Glover said in Metal Hammer, "I think 'Smoke On The Water' is the biggest song that Purple will ever have and there's always a pressure to play it, and it's not the greatest live song, it's a good song but you sorta plod through it. The excitement comes from the audience. And there's always the apprehension that Ritchie (Blackmore) isn't gonna want to do it, 'cause he's probably fed up with doing it."

The water that provides a base for the smoke in this song is Lake Geneva, which the casino overlooked.

"Funky Claude," as in the lyrics "Funky Claude was running in and out pulling kids out the ground," is Claude Nobs, a man who helped rescue some people in the fire and found another hotel for the band to stay. He is the co-founder of the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival.

Nobs explained to Gibson.com how this song arose out of the ashes: "Deep Purple were watching the whole fire from their hotel window, and they said, 'Oh my God, look what happened. Poor Claude and there's no casino anymore!' They were supposed to do a live gig [at the casino] and record the new album there. Finally I found a place in a little abandoned hotel next to my house and we made a temporary studio for them. One day they were coming up for dinner at my house and they said, 'Claude we did a little surprise for you, but it's not going to be on the album. It's a tune called "Smoke On The Water.'" So I listened to it. I said, 'You're crazy. It's going to be a huge thing.' Now there's no guitar player in the world who doesn't know [he hums the riff]. They said, 'Oh if you believe so we'll put it on the album.' It's actually the very precise description of the fire in the casino, of Frank Zappa getting the kids out of the casino, and every detail in the song is true. It's what really happened. In the middle of the song, it says 'Funky Claude was getting people out of the building,' and actually when I meet a lot of rock musicians, they still say, 'Oh here comes Funky Claude.'"

The B-side of the single was another version of the song, recorded live in Japan.

In 1989, Former members Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan released a new version of this with Robert Plant, Brian May, and Bruce Dickinson. They called the project "Rock Aid Armenia," with proceeds going to victims of the Armenian earthquake.

Homer is heard crooning to this song in an a episode of The Simpsons in which he uses medicinal marijuana.

Pat Boone covered this on In a Metal Mood. On the album, he performed heavy metal songs with string instruments, pianos, etc., but in this case kept the famous guitar riff and even allowed the guitarist a solo. Otherwise, it sounded very jazzy.

The famous guitar riff is performed in the 2003 Jack Black film School Of Rock.

On June 3, 2007 in Kansas City, Kansas, 1,721 guitarists gathered to play this song together and break the record for most guitarists playing at one time. The entire song was played, though only the one lead guitar played the solo. Guitarists from as far as Scotland came out for the event. The event was organized by radio station KYYS. See the photo in Song Images. It's hard to compete with outsourcing, however, and the record was beaten on October 26, 2007 when 1,730 guitarists gathered in Shillong, India to perform "Knocking On Heaven's Door."

This was used in commercials for Dodge trucks. The song plays on a jukebox that a guy is eyeing in an antique store. His wife gets her way and they take home a piece of furniture instead - the point being the large payload capacity of the truck.

According to an interview with Ian Gillian on VH1's Classic Albums: Machine Head, the band did not have much money when recording this album and were renting a recording studio. They stayed past when they were supposed to get out. As they were recording this song, the police were knocking on the door of the studio to kick them out. (thanks, Ben - Baltimore, MD)

In a 2008 survey of students from music schools across London, this topped a poll to find the best ever guitar riff. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came second and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" third.

According to the London Times newspaper, Ritchie Blackmore was embarrassed to present this song to his fellow members of Deep Purple because it was such a Neanderthal tune for a guitarist of his caliber to come up with.

The lyrics, "Swiss time was running out" meant that their visas were going to expire soon. They wrote the songs and recorded them in a matter of weeks.

Many beginners try to play this when they pick up a guitar, and they usually play it wrong. Here's how: Use the open G and D strings as the starting point and you pluck the strings with a finger each, not a pick. Lots of people play this from the 5th fret of the A and D string, which is wrong.

Fender.com asked Ritchie Blackmore how he came up with the song's famous riff. He replied: "Ian Paice (Deep Purple drummer) and I often used to jam, just the two of us. It was a natural riff to play at the time. It was the first thing that came into my head during that jam."