By chance, if you ever happen to visit the Swiss town of Montreux, then do not be lazy, look for two really significant sights for the history of heavy music there.

Freddie Mercury's monument

The conversation is not even about the bronze Freddie Mercury, who in 1996 stood for centuries on the shores of Lake Geneva, although it is not a sin to bow to him once again. It's about about the local hall "Casino" and, above all, about the unique and only monument in the world - the "song". And that song is "Smoke On The Water" from Deep Purple's Machine Head album! "Smoke On The Water is not just a hit song.
Her fate was different - she became a real "hard rock standard" and the anthem of a whole generation of music lovers. It is unlikely that there will be at least one fan of rock, and not only rock, who would not hear her. And for the group deep purple"Smoke On The Water" became a ticket to eternity. So, in December 1971, Deep Purple arrived in Montreux. Their plans were simple and clear, they were to record the next studio album Machine Head. To do this, the Rolling Stones rented a mobile studio Rolling Stones Mobile, which was an impressive van truck, where sound recording equipment was mounted.
Previously, it was planned that the musicians themselves would be located on the stage of the local entertainment complex "Casino", which stands right on the shore of the lake. On this day, Frank Zappa and his band "The Mothers Of Invention" gave a concert in the "Casino", the stage was still busy, and Deep Purple decided not to unload their equipment yet. As if anticipating something is not right.
An hour after Zappa's performance began, during the synth solo on "King Kong", a crazed fan fired a flare gun at the ceiling of the hall. And there was built a decorative bamboo canopy.

Smoke on the lake

The upcoming fire did not have to wait long. Zappa said sadly into the microphone "don't panic, we're on fire", after which his musicians put down their instruments and left the stage. Then, calmly, without crowding and tantrums, they took out all the spectators - no one was hurt.
The evacuation was personally organized by the director of the jazz festival in Montreux, Claude Nobs (by the way, he organized the recording of the album "Machine Head" and became its producer).
At first, the flame flared up slowly - it was not even visible. Roger Glover, unaware of the risk he was taking, re-entered the burning Casino to get a closer look and feel for two of Zappa's newest synthesizers. It's good that Glover managed to get out of the burning building in time and joined the rest of the musicians, who had taken refuge from the hustle and bustle of the crowd in the restaurant of the Europe hotel. And from there, through the big window, they saw. like the Casino building, which turned 90 years old in 1971, turned into a flaming hell, and a curtain of smoke hung over the water of Lake Geneva, which did not dissipate then for a couple of days.
And Zappa's synthesizers, by the way, did not manage to endure, they burned down.
Thus Deep Purple were left without a recording space. But already in the morning of the next day, Claude Nobs agreed with the administration of the nearby Pavilion Theater. During the day, all the equipment was moved there and the band began preparations for recording the instrumental parts for the track with the symbol "Title #1". The riff for this song was prepared by Ritchie Blackmore before the trip to Montreux ( gossips claim that he "ripped off" it from the Brazilian Carlos Lira song "Maria Moita", which was first recorded by Astrud Gilberto for the Look At The Rainbow album. 1965).
By evening, the equipment setup was completed, and the group began to work. Only the third take was liked by everyone, and on the clock it was already well after midnight. Stopping, the musicians noticed the slightly tense behavior of the attendants, who were instructed to ensure silence and the absence of strangers during the recording. It turns out that the entire evening, a police squad, called by the residents of the surrounding houses, was bursting at the door of the studio! Here you should clarify something. Montreux, despite rock-star concerts and jazz festivals, then, and today, is a very quiet, expensive, aristocratic resort on the "Swiss Riviera". Queen, Deep Purple, Bowie, Zappa - yes, of course.
But Montreux, as a place for rest and treatment, long before them was chosen by Stravinsky, Nabokov, Hemingway. Rousseau ... Tchaikovsky, again - he is his " Swan Lake"I didn’t let through the megawatt Marshalls at one in the morning! And there are only twenty thousand locals here. And they are used to a certain type of holiday-goers. So you yourself understand - the slightest noise after sunset, and the vigilant" Montreuils "immediately" call the police " "So, the policemen who arrived correctly asked the musicians to limit their work to the daytime hours. This did not suit anyone. So Nobs was "charged" to look for a new premises - in a small town it turned out to be quite difficult. Five or six days passed. Legend has it that it was during these days that Yen Gillan heard Roger Glover, apparently under the impression, mutter the phrase "smoke on the water" several times in his sleep.

Smoke on the water song's monument

In the morning, sitting in a restaurant, Gillan again remembered these words, grabbed a napkin and wrote them down. This is how the famous chorus was born, which gave the final name to the song recorded the day before - "Smoke On The Water" instead of the working "Title # 1!". Then, finally, Nobs managed to film the entire Grand Hotel, which was on the outskirts of the city and was completely empty at this time of the year. Naturally, he did not heat up. For the record, a T-shaped corridor on the first floor was chosen. A specially hired carpenter knocked together a wooden shield that fenced him off from the foyer. The shield was lined with mattresses from empty rooms. The space thus limited was heated by an industrial heat gun. To create a "creative atmosphere" the corridor was illuminated with red lights. A truck with Rolling Stones Mobile was parked nearby and cables were pulled from it into the premises. But the musicians had to get into the corridor through the balconies of adjacent rooms - after all, the entrance to the foyer was boarded up! All other instrumental parts of Machine Head were immortalized there, only Ian Paice decided to record the drums in another corridor, not separated from the hall, as he liked the sound reverberation in this place. Last of all, vocals were added, including on the track "Smoke On The Water", recorded back in the Pavilion Theater. By this time, Gillan had the entire text ready. And he tells, in general, about all the aforementioned conclusions when recording the album - about the fire at the Zappa concert, about how Claude Nobs took people out, how the Casino burned down, how the Grand Hotel was found and everything was already recorded there. plate: "We will never forget, this smoke over the water and the fire in the sky!" The song "Smoke On The Water" was released on the Machine Head album in March 1972. Gradually it became clear that it would be one of the most significant tracks on the disc. It appeared on the shelves of music stores in 1973 as a single, with a live version on the B-side.

Smoke on the water manuscript

The single went gold on sales and reached number four on the authoritative Billboard chart. They say that thanks to him, the whole album soon took 1st place in the national English hit parade, and by 1986 it became twice "platinum" (2,000,000 copies)! Subsequently, the disc was reissued more than once, in Britain its quadraphonic version was even released. The song "Smoke On The Water" was included in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list, the publication placed it in the top twenty of the 100 greatest guitar tracks, as did BBC radio. Cover versions of her simply do not count, we can mention options from Iron Maiden, Yngwie Malmsteen, Dream Theater, Sepultura, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Six Feet Under.
Thematic gatherings of guitarists are also known, who compete with each other only in the performance of the famous riff, the last such event took place in 2009 in Poland and gathered 6346 people!
This figure was included in the Guinness Book of Records. And what about "Casino"? It was rebuilt by 1975 and became a venue for jazz festivals, and in the 90s they wanted to close it, but its owners (and these are some French) still did not raise their hand to do this. Now you can visit it - the location of the "Rue du Theater", you can easily find it on any tourist map of the city without much difficulty.
Now you probably want to know what the monument to the song "Smoke On The Water" looks like and how to find it? Very simple. Find (also on the tourist map) the Mercury monument (crossing Place du Marche and the Rouvenaz embankment). Stand on the embankment facing him, and turn your back, respectively, to the lake. Look carefully to the left. And you will see on the rough, iron musical staff ivy-covered notes of the famous riff - "Smoke On The Water"

Smoke on the Water is a song by the rock band Deep Purple, recorded in December 1971 and first released on the Machine Head album in March 1972. It was released as a single only in 1973; the second side of the single was occupied by her live version from the Made in Japan album.

A bit of history

The song describes real events. In December 1971, the band traveled to the Swiss town of Montreux to record new album in a mobile studio leased from the Rolling Stones and known as the Rolling Stones Mobile. It was decided to record in entertainment complex Montreux casino (in the song - "the gambling house"), in which they have already been with concerts. On the eve of the studio session, on Saturday, December 4th, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention performed in the Casino Theater as part of their European tour. This was the last concert in this hall, after which he was supposed to be at the disposal of Deep Purple to record an album.

In order to avoid misunderstandings, the group decided not to unload the equipment for the time being, which later turned out to be a happy decision. About an hour after the start of the concert, during the synth solo on King Kong, sparks appeared from behind the suspended bamboo ceiling and then a fire - apparently, one of the spectators (who could not be found) fired a flare gun at the roof (the line "some stupid with a flare gun"). Zappa calmly said "don't panic, we're on fire", after which the musicians left the stage. Spectators were evacuated in a fairly organized manner, there were no casualties. The song mentions "funky Claude" who "ran in and out" - this is the director of the Montreux Jazz Festival, Claude Nobs, who helped the audience out of the hall. Among the audience were members of Deep Purple. According to Glover's memoirs, the fire was initially so weak that during the evacuation he managed to re-enter the hall during the evacuation, get closer to the empty stage, examine Zappa's equipment with the band and be impressed by the two newest synthesizers.

As a result of the fire, the entire multi-storey casino complex burned to the ground, along with concert hall and equipment "The Mothers". From the Europe Hotel, where the members of Deep Purple were staying, the musicians watched through the restaurant's large window as the casino was engulfed in flames. The group, which had already rented an expensive studio, had to look around the city for new premises. Nobs soon found The Pavilion Theater for them, located in the city center. The equipment was moved there and work began in the middle of the day on an instrumental track with a new riff prepared by Blackmore, still without lyrics, under the working title "Title # 1".

Debugging the equipment and developing arrangements took the rest of the day, and the actual dubs began to be recorded already after midnight. The third double was successful, and they stopped on it. As it turned out, all this time the attendants tried to keep the police squad behind the locked doors, which was called by the neighboring residents because of the noise. It was thanks to the fact that the police were detained that the recording of the track was completed.

Since working only during the daytime did not suit the musicians, they had to look for a new hall. There were many requirements for the premises, and its search took 5-6 days. On one of these days of waiting, Glover woke up in a hotel room, uttering the words "smoke on the water" at the moment of awakening.

When he later reported these words to Gillan, he said that they sounded like “addicts”, and, referring to themselves exclusively as “drinking” groups, they initially rejected these words.

In the end, already in time trouble, the group rented the entire Grand Hotel, which was on the outskirts and almost empty, and therefore practically unheated in December ("We ended up at the Grand Hotel, / It was empty, cold and bare") , turning her T-shaped hallway on the first floor into a makeshift studio. A carpenter had to be specially hired to build a wooden shield that blocked off the foyer, and to overlay the shield with mattresses from hotel rooms. An industrial heater was rented, which was turned on during breaks several times a day. Cables were run from the studio parked nearby to the hotel. Since the entrance to the foyer was blocked by a shield, the musicians got inside and got out back to the street to the mobile studio through the side corridor and balconies of the adjoining adjacent rooms. The space where they played was lit up with red spotlights to create a creative atmosphere ("With a few red lights and a few old beds / We made a place to sweat..."). The drum parts were recorded separately in the hallway of the hotel, as Ian Paice liked the reverb of the hall between the numbers.

Under such conditions, the entire Machine Head album was recorded. And on the instrumental track, recorded earlier in the "Pavilion", the newly written text with the chorus "Smoke on the Water" was overdubbed. Of all the songs on the album, the song "Smoke on the Water" was included in concert program 1972 is the latest, it happened at the end of May.

guitar riff

Smoke on the Water is known for its highly recognizable guitar riff, a syncopated melody in a blues scale, in parallel fourths. performs this riff on Fender guitar Stratocaster by simultaneously plucking two strings with two fingers, for complete simultaneity of their sound. In the introduction, the hi-hat, Hammond organ, drums and bass guitar are successively joined to the guitar.

Method number 1

Ritchie Blackmore's Standard Way to Play a Riff, (Machine Head - 1972)

The most famous song of the group Deep Purple was written on the basis of real events, which are based on the fire in the casino of the Swiss town of Montreux, which occurred on 12/04/1971.

Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water: the story

In 1971, British musicians arrived in Montreux to begin recording their third album in gold lineup. Along the way, they rented a mobile studio from the Rolling Stones and prepared for recording at a local gambling house. Last concert in the hall before the start of the recording there was a performance by his team The Mothers of Invention. It was during this performance that a fire broke out, presumably from a shot from a rocket launcher into the roof. The casino building and all the equipment of The Mothers burned to the ground. But in the Montreux casino it was possible to play live roulette or poker. But now it can be done online at http://slot-club-online.com/ without fires and to the famous song Deep Purple about the casino. The Deep Purple musicians were present at the concert, and the final scene of the fire was already observed from their hotel.

Text Smoke on the Water

We all came out to Montreaux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a Mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground

And fire in the sky

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Funky and Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids out the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race

And fire in the sky

We ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
no matter what we get out of this
I know we'll never forget

The most popular "thing" of Deep Purple, which is undoubtedly a real legend of hard rock, is the song "Smoke on the Water". She has amassed many prestigious music awards, broke records in sales, numerous covers were recorded on it. Moreover, a monument was erected to the “golden” single of the “dark purples” in Montreux, the city where he was born.

Perhaps there is no person who has not heard this song, and a musician who has not tried to play it.

Unexpected successes of "Smoke on the Water"

"Smoke on the Water" (translated from English - "Smoke on the Water") was recorded in December 71st. In March of the following year, the song was released as part of the full-length release "Machine Head". And in 1973 she made her debut as a single: on one side of the disc was placed her "clean" version, on the second - a live recording from the album "Made in Japan" ("Made in Japan").

The record with the single was immediately snapped up by music lovers. And this despite the fact that the track has been spinning for two years from any device capable of reproducing sound.

Based on sales results Deep Purple single "Smoke on the Water" awarded the title of "gold". It reached number 4 on the Billboard chart, settled at number 434 among the five hundred greatest songs of all time and slipped into the top twenty. the best compositions on BBC radio. According to music critics, it was this track that made the album "Machine Head" platinum.

The history of "Smoke on the Water" is marked by numerous covers. It was not quailed except by the lazy one. Rock legends Yngwie Malmsteen, Iron Maiden, Jon Bon Jovi, Sepultura, Santana, Dream Theatre, Brian May, Soulfly, Vains of Jenne, Six Feet Under and many others presented their versions of the song.

The most interesting thing is that the creators of the track did not expect such success. They relied on "Never Before" and "Maybe I'm a Leo", while the song "Smoke on the Water", in their opinion, should have been a passing song.

What is special about her, besides a simple catchy melody?

Birth of a legend

Those who have long wanted to know what the song "Smoke on the Water" is about will be disappointed. No allegories, metaphors and hidden meaning . It's as simple as four-quarter time signature. Same as the legendary track.

Text "Smoke on the Water" reflects the events that actually happened to the band in the city of Montreux, in the west of Switzerland.

The story of "Smoke on the Water" begins in the winter of 1971. The musicians came to this town to record their next album. They planned to set up a recording studio in the Montreux Casino entertainment complex. But they did not immediately unload the equipment, but decided to wait until the end of the Frank Zappa concert.

It turned out that this decision was fateful. During the performance, one of the spectators present fired a flare gun upwards and hit the ceiling, causing the bamboo hanger to catch fire.

Zappa announced the fire was starting and left the stage. At the same time, the director of the jazz festival, Claude Nobs, began to lead the audience out of the hall. In the track, a line is dedicated to him - "Frightened Claude ran back and forth."

The fire flared up gradually, so many guests, like stubborn sheep, demanded the continuation of the concert.

One of these "rams" was Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover. He returned to the complex building to admire the two brand new synthesizers.

But soon a small fire turned into a real disaster and the complex burned to the ground. And over the waters of Lake Lac Léman a thick smoke spread out, which lasted for several days. It is this "smoke on the water" that is implied in the song "Smoke on the Water".

The musicians “admired” the apocalyptic view from the window of the Europe Hotel. He especially impressed Glover.. In a few days he woke up with the words "smoke over the water". And during breakfast, I sketched the text "Smoke on the Water" on a napkin.

The rest of the band was initially reluctant to use the phrase "smoke on the water". They considered her a "drug addict". Roger Glover agreed with this opinion. But a better comparison could not be found.

After the fire, the musicians began looking for a new building to record the album. Initially, Nobs negotiated the lease of the theater "The Pavilion". But the conservative Swiss rebelled against the loud nightly rehearsals in the heart of the city. And they called the police.

The service personnel managed to hold back the onslaught of law enforcement officers. Thanks to their efforts, a pre-recording of the future Deep Purple hit "Smoke on the Water" with the working title "Title # 1" appeared.

The musicians had to look for other options. A week later, they looked after the Grand Hotel. Out of season it was empty. And it didn't heat up.

One of the lines - "We settled in the Grand Hotel, / It was empty, cold and poor" - describes exactly that uninhabited hotel.

At first glance, the cold seems like a trifle. But playing in such conditions is almost impossible: the fingers become stiff, the hands cramp, and the equipment is constantly upset.

And yet it was here that the entire Machine Head record was recorded. The work was carried out in the lobby of the hotel. And only the drum parts were writing in the corridor of the Grand Hotel. Ian Paice liked the sound in the lobby between rooms.

In the same place on the demo-recording made in «The Pavilion», words were imposed. And they made the translation of “Smoke on the Water” from a working track into a full-fledged one.

monumental memory

Deep Purple hit "Smoke on the Water" was not spared accusations of plagiarism. The similarity was found in the album of Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto and American pianist Gil Evans - "Look to the Rainbow", recorded five years before the appearance of "Smoke on the Water". A motif that almost completely coincides with the famous "dark purple" riff sounds in the intro of the song "Maria Quiet" (Maria Moite). The coincidence is so striking that it is not particularly believed in chance.

Richard Blackmore laughed off this comparison, saying that he had actually just played Beethoven's Fifth Symphony backwards.

Basically, it doesn't really matter was it a coincidence or deep purple really plagiarized. After all it was they who made the legendary motif famous. So much so that it has been immortalized.

In that fateful city of Montreux erected a kind of monument dedicated to the "golden" single of the British group: on a metal stave, entangled in ivy, the notes of the famous riff are inscribed.

Thanks to this monument, the song "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple left its mark not only in the hearts of music lovers around the world, but also immortalized in the physical world, which is a rather rare achievement for musical works.

Last updated: August 9th, 2017 by rock star