Credit: Far Out / Sony Music Entertainment
November 9th, 2026 · 10:30pm GMT
Jimi Hendrix never liked psychedelic music.
That might be difficult to believe, given he’s celebrated in the world of psychedelia a great deal; however, he passed away in 1970, which is when many people would argue is before the genre really found its feet. At this point, psychedelic rock was a genre that was essentially rock music but bent out of shape and more experimental.
That all sounds well and good, but the way such experimentation presented itself rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. They felt like there wasn’t any direction to the genre, and even bands like Pink Floyd don’t look back fondly on early albums like Piper at the Gates of Dawn because members like Roger Waters thought it was an incredibly directionless time in the band’s history.
Jimi Hendrix, when talking about early iterations of psychedelic rock, said that he thought bands cared more about the lights they used than the music they played. “Here’s one thing I hate, man,” he said. “When these cats say, ‘Look at the band. They’re playing psychedelic music!’ All they’re doing is flashing lights on them and playing ‘Johnny B. Goode’ with the wrong chords. It’s terrible.”
You can understand where Hendrix was coming from here, as the genre was very much finding its feet, but he had elements within his music that we would associate with what we now recognise as psychedelia. His improvisational nature, the way he would make his guitar mimic sounds that weren’t guitars, and of course, the fact he was happy using instruments that weren’t conventionally used in rock songs. One of the greatest examples of this is in the 1969 track ‘Crosstown Traffic’, where the main melody line is played on the kazoo.
If you haven’t heard the song, you might be rolling your eyes at the idea of this sound, but it actually works incredibly well. It gives the song a buzzy and energetic sound, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. Arguably, this strange little kazoo line is what separates the track from a lot of other Hendrix numbers.
So, who plays the kazoo on ‘Crosstown Traffic’?
The reason why a kazoo was used on this song was because of the theme employed throughout the number. Hendrix wasn’t actually talking about traffic with the song, but was using it as a metaphor to sing about a woman who couldn’t understand the fact that people didn’t want her around. Hendrix likened the process of trying to get through to said person to getting through crosstown traffic.
So, why the kazoo? Well, it made sense to Hendrix to try and use the kazoo to simulate the sound of traffic. There was always the option to use the actual sound of car horns, but he was never too keen on using these real-world noises within his music. The kazoo seemed like a good alternative to him.
And because it was his idea, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that it’s Hendrix who’s actually playing the instrument. He had the best reason for using the instrument and the best understanding of the melody line, so he was happy to put himself forward as the kazoo-blowing instrumentalist.
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