Up From the Shadow Out of Time: A Grand Unified Theory of the Lovecraft-Hendrix Axis

If you haven’t already done so, read “The Shadow Out of Time” by H.P. Lovecraft, then listen to “Up From the Skies” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Next, read "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Call of Cthulhu," and preferably the complete fiction of Lovecraft. Then listen to the rest of Axis: Bold As Love, and everything else by Hendrix.

As you should be able to deduce, Hendrix’s body was briefly inhabited by a Yithian. “Up From the Skies” is a sincere appeal from a non-human wanting to learn about the 1960s for possible mass mind migration. The song uses slang terms which the Yithian thought would be more clear to humans of that era. You dig?

Jimi probably acted funny for a few months, but not funny enough for friends or handlers or hangers-on to notice. They would have thought he was being a moody rock star, or tripping, or drunk. Not far out of character.

"Up From the Skies"

 

I just want to talk to you. I won't do you no harm.
I just want to know about your different lives
On this is here people farm.
I heard some of you got your families
Living in cages tall and cold
And some just stay there and dust away
Past the age of old.
Is this true?
Please let me talk to you.
I just wanna know about The rooms behind your minds.

Do I see a vacuum there
Or am I going blind? Or is it just remains of vibrations
And echoes long ago?
Things like "Love the world" and
"Let your fancy flow."
Is this true?
Please let me talk to you.
Let me talk to you.
I have lived here before
The days of ice
And of course this is why
I'm so concerned.
And I come back to find
The stars misplaced
And the smell of a world
That has burned.
Yeah well, maybe, hmm... Maybe it's just a... change of climate
Hmm, hmm...
Well I can dig it
I can dig it baby
I just want to see.
So where do I purchase my ticket ?
I'd just like to have a ringside seat
I want to know about the new Mother Earth I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything
I want to hear and see everything.

The Yithian obviously abandoned Jimi after only a few months, finding the 1960s too freaky. Meanwhile, Jimi's mind was transported into the body of a Yithian 250 million years ago, where he talked with other captive humans from different periods, including an alcoholic with a rocky marriage from 1938, a young Native American, a disabled woman from the future. These stories became vignettes in “Castles Made of Sand.”

Jimi wrote “Little Wing” about an Elder Thing he met (see “At the Mountains of Madness”) who was also captive of the Yithians. An early draft of the lyrics mentions “butterflies and penguins and moonbeams.”

Some of Jimi’s experiences from that period are mentioned in his other songs, especially visions of mountains falling to the sea (“If 6 Was 9”) and the rise of R’lyeh from under the sea. ("Voodoo Child" – “Well I stand up next to a mountain. I chop it down with the edge of my hand. Pick up all the pieces and build you an island, I might even raise a little sand.”)

The Yithians were able to screen the future film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind while Jimi was there, which explains the battlegrounds and insect-riding in “Spanish Castle Magic.” The line about "Just float your little mind" is about the way Yithians can transfer their consciousness between bodies.

“Bold As Love” is just trippy, Dylanesque imagery written before Jimi’s abduction. No connection.