So many people have covered this tune, and I really wanted to include a good live video but I just couldn’t settle for anything else. Nobody comes close to Jimi Hendrix’s version of Little Wing, a song I first heard when Sting’s Nothing Like the Sun came out in 1987. I liked it then, mostly for its lyrics. Then a few years later, I heard the original in my friend Bill’s Hendrix collection and fell completely head over heels in love with it.
Little Wing was first recorded by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on their 1967 album Axis: Bold as Love, and according to wikipedia is one of Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” as I think it should be! I like the glockenspiel sounds and the whole ethereal quality of the song, which lends itself to the notion that “little wing” could refer to a guardian angel of some sort.
I love the idea that we all have guardian angels looking out for us. I was reminded of the song last week when an old friend wrote to me and called me “little wing” … it was like a secret nod and a warm hug all at once, and it made me feel like someone out there was watching over me. And without being aware of it, I was watching over them too.
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