  Axis: Bold as Love As much as I want to convey exactly what it is about a particular selection of music that makes it magical, I can’t. I can’t put my finger on what makes these songs so amazing. And I don’t want to analyze them until they’ve lost their power. Music is something to be felt, I think, rather than heard. And that perfectly defines ‘Little Wing’. The linear notes of one particular Best Of compilation tells me that the original idea for ‘Little Wing’ was developed while performing with Jimmy James and The Blue Flames in Greenwich Village.
It was recorded for Axis: Bold as Love in October of ‘67. My conflict with Jimi, my Jimi, is his mythical quality. There is something about the man who grew up across the state from where I would eventually be born, there is something about him that seems so other-worldly. His swagger, his performances, his look all are conveyed with a kind of adeptness that mere mortals don’t possess. Jimi said, “I dig writing slow songs, because it’s easier to get more blues and feeling into them.” And in the painfully short two minuets and twenty-five seconds of ‘Little Wing’, he certainly packed as much feeling in as he possibly could. Even if I knew every nuance, all the terminology, for the guitar, I could not possibly explain the way ‘Little Wing’ floats out of my headphones.
Some songs are an explosion of music. They fill every corner of the room and force you to notice them. This song achieves a similar effect, but minus the explosion. The music trickles out slowly, smoothly, effortlessly making you listen, and listen carefully. It’s interesting that in Jimi’s time the word ‘groovy’ was en vogue, because that’s exactly how I feel when I listen to his music. ‘Little Wing’ makes me feel… groovy.
The song turns a perfectly normal situation into something that much cooler, groovier, because Jimi is there. And when aided with psychotropic substances, the effect is amplified. The song is also a mystery; who is this woman? We know she’s got a circus mind, its running round, and that she thinks about moonbeams and butterflies. But then she’s also giving Jimi smiles, comforting him, giving him anything and everything he wants. Does Jimi love her?
Does it matter? The beautiful thing about this song is how aligned, and how perfectly matched, the lyrics and the music are. ‘Little Wing’ might just be every bit as breathtaking if Jimi had never bothered to pen words, because the guitar has such standing. Some have said, apparently, that much of the lyrical content on this record was inspired by Bob Dylan. I can see that, and I suppose it’s a fair assumption, but it’s probably more likely that their styles were simply similar. The quality that both Bob and Jimi posses, as far as writing lyrics is concerned, is their effectiveness.
They don’t overpower the song with words, they don’t abuse metaphors, and they never come off as overly ambitious. It’s organic, smooth, effortless. 
