"PURPLE Haze? More like a GREEN one . . ."

I almost got my head stomped on in when I was a teenager, because of those 7 little words.

My first day in yet one more new school, someone had warned me to avoid their worst bully, named "Danny".

I was only given subtle warnings, such as: "stay away from him", "toughest kid in school", "major druggie", "family problems", "goes into fits of rage", " can beat up guys twice his size", "always suspended for fighting", etc. etc.

GREAT. So, at the last class of the very first day, I was already nervous when I was told I HAD to sit next to him. It was at one of those two seat lab tables. As I sat down, I tried to be friendly and said, "hey" to him. He just scowled at me.

About 5 minutes into class, he was completely ignoring the teacher and everything else. He began "quietly" rocking out, swaying, "banging" his head and singing to himself.

Then he started singing Jimi Hendrix's, "Purple Haze". At that time, I actually owned the record - yes, RECORD - but for WHATEVER reason, I didn't know that it was that particular song he was singing. Then he got a little louder when he got to the words:

" . . . acting funny, but I don't know why . . . 'scuse me while I kiss the sky"

Because God and Jimi were apparently setting me up, I still didn't recognize it was "Purple Haze". Right then, my brain shut the REST of the way off and I turned to the toughest bully in school and loudly blurted out: "Did you just say, 'scuse me while I KISS THIS GUY?" I should have just punched myself in the face at that point.

People started snickering and some even laughed out loud, until he turned to look at them. Everyone would immediately stop, if he looked in their direction. Then he glared at me and simply said, "YOU'RE DEAD". I believed him.

The weirdest part is that I'm positive I somehow, miraculously avoided having him kicking my head in that day, and even for the rest of the school year. I do remember that albeit uselessly, I tried to persuade him that I also loved Hendrix and smoking weed. But it was far too late for any of that. He told me to shut up and repeated that I was going to be "dead", as soon as school was out.

At this point, I sort of blanked out. I retreated into my own mental world. I'm sure it was a world where I was probably a black belt and I didn't blurt out brain damaged comments as a cheap way of committing suicide.

That must be why I can't remember for sure how I escaped his boots and fists that day. Who knows, maybe the teacher grabbed him while I made my getaway and I then I kept myself as invisible as possible for the rest of the year. Maybe I bribed him with a promise of some free pot. Whatever the case, it took a while before I could enjoy the song without cringing at the first verse. All these years later and I have no clue what happened to that old record. I still regularly crank it up nice and loud, now it's just on my MP3 player. True story.

I wrote all this down because after all these years, I just discovered these 2 little known "facts":

1) It's the "world's most commonly misheard lyric"

2) Jimi deliberately chose (or even copied) those words so it could be sung and/or heard EITHER way

Seem hard to believe? Check out the claims at - believe it or not - KISSTHISGUY dot com! (The "Misheard Lyric Archive")

Don't let the name of the site fool you, it's safe to click:

http://www.kissthisguy.com/jimi.php