Are You Experienced? Analysis of the Song that Took the Title

Many Listeners immediately associate the song Are You Experienced with drug usage, believing that when Jimi asks “are you experienced” he means, have you ever done drugs; while drugs may sometimes be an ingredient in the experiences Jimi claims to have had, there is so much more to the song than this one aspect.  In the second verse, the claims that experiences are very personal and involve going against the grain to follow what makes you happy.  Jimi sings “but who in your little world are you trying to prove that you’re made out of gold and, eh, can’t be sold”.  This suggests that having experiences does not mean you have convinced yourself and society that you are living life.  Experiences do not include what is considered enjoyable by those around you and they are not about outside influences creating a false sense of enjoyment.  True experiences are about following your desires to rise to your full potential and create an individual that you love, an individual that is completely at peace with their role in the world.   This relates to Ken Kesey’s desires to take the acid movement beyond the drugs.  The drugs were too mainstream, becoming too much of a group project.  Kesey wanted to use drugs to take each individual person to a higher form of themselves and this is what Jimi calls for in his song.  The last line of the song says the experience is “not necessarily stoned, but beautiful” suggesting the final result of the experience is a person that has accomplished Kesey’s purpose of moving beyond the drugs to something higher.  The song is almost a dare and taunt to listeners to provoke them to find their experiences.   

This song takes the name of the album because it sums up what the project means as a whole.  It reminds listeners that in his album, Jimi takes us through his own life, relationships and ups and downs, taking us through his experiences.  It reminds listeners to forget that the album is a top forty record.  It reminds them that they should not listen to it because it will make them cool in the eyes of their friends, that it will “allow them to prove they are made out of gold”, but to listen to it for the experience and to become one with the music that Hendrix creates.