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Credit: Far Out \/ Sony Music Entertainment<\/p>\n
November 9th, 2026 \u00b7 10:30pm GMT <\/p>\n
Jimi Hendrix<\/a> never liked psychedelic music. <\/p>\n That might be difficult to believe, given he\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n 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\u2019t any direction to the genre, and even bands like Pink Floyd don\u2019t 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\u2019s history. <\/p>\n 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<\/a>. \u201cHere\u2019s one thing I hate, man,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen these cats say, \u2018Look at the band. They\u2019re playing psychedelic music!\u2019 All they\u2019re doing is flashing lights on them and playing \u2018Johnny B. Goode\u2019 with the wrong chords. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019t guitars, and of course, the fact he was happy using instruments that weren\u2019t conventionally used in rock songs. One of the greatest examples of this is in the 1969 track \u2018Crosstown Traffic\u2019, where the main melody line is played on the kazoo. <\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t 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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n So, who plays the kazoo on \u2018Crosstown Traffic\u2019? <\/p>\n The reason why a kazoo was used on this song was because of the theme employed throughout the number. Hendrix wasn\u2019t actually talking about traffic with the song, but was using it as a metaphor to sing about a woman who couldn\u2019t understand the fact that people didn\u2019t want her around. Hendrix likened the process of trying to get through to said person to getting through crosstown traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n And because it was his idea, it probably won\u2019t surprise you to hear that it\u2019s Hendrix who\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n