The morning is dead, and the day is too
There's nothing left here to lead me but the velvet moon
All my loneliness I have felt today
It's a little more than enough to make a man throw himself away
And I continue to burn the midnight lamp alone
Now the smiling portrait of you is still hanging on my frowning wall
It really doesn't, it really doesn't bother me too much at all
It's just the ever-falling dust that makes it so hard for me to see
That forgotten earring laying on the floor facing coldly toward the door
And I continue to burn the midnight lamp all alone
So here I sit to face that same old fireplace
Getting ready for the same old explosion going through my mind
And soon enough, the time will tell
About the surface in the wishing well
And someone who will buy and sell for me
Someone who will toll my bell
And I continue to burn the same old lamp alone
Recorded in May, 1967, this melancholy blues song appears on Electric Ladyland (1968) and was first released as a U.K. single. Jimi Hendrix uses the wah-wah effect on his guitar for the first time and also overdubs some harpsichord embellishments. This song is about the traveling that Jimi did. Ironically, Jimi finished the song on a plane journey from Los Angeles to New York. The R&B group Sweet Inspirations provides vocal backing.
Hendrix describing the song in his own words: "There are some very personal things in there, but I think everyone can understand the feeling when you’re traveling that no matter what your address there is no place you can call home. The feeling of a man in a little old house in the middle of a desert where he is burning the midnight lamp. That’s really a song I’m proud of. Some people say this is the worst track we have ever done, but I think it is the best. Even if the technique is not great, even if the sound is not clear and even if the lyrics can’t be properly heard, this is a song that you often listen to and come back to. I don’t play neither piano nor harpsichord, but I managed to put together all these different sounds.”
From: https://genius.com/The-jimi-hendrix-experience-burning-of-the-midnight-lamp-lyrics
The video is a rare clip of a playback performance of 'The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp' on the French TV programme "Un portrait de Marie Laforêt" broadcast on 21st October 1967.
Interestingly, the spread from a French TV guide that detailed the evening's viewing for the 21st Oct 1967 stated the show was a special on French singer Marie Laforêt and would feature both The Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Small Faces (my kind of line-up!), but the text in the corner of the programme read: "At print time the people in charge for this program still don't know if the recorded sequences featuring Jimi Hendrix and British band the Small Faces will be part of the show. Thus we announce them under all reservations."
Written by Hendrix and produced by band manager Chas Chandler, 'The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp' featured R&B group Sweet Inspirations on backing vocals. The song was released in August 1967 as the group's fourth single in the U.K. and later included on the 1968 British edition of their compilation, Smash Hits. In the U.S., it first appeared as the B-side of "All Along the Watchtower". The song was added to both US and UK editions of Electric Ladyland (1968).
Hendrix wrote the lyrics on a flight from New York to Los Angeles in 1967. They express the confusion he felt at the time. Writing for music website AllMusic, Matthew Greenwald proposed that the song is "one of Jimi Hendrix's more interesting records of his early career", praising the "wildly imaginative, psychedelic lyric" and the "striking" musical performance. From: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=669034634009267
