History of the song "Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple (1971)

Today we're going to talk about the creation of classic rock's greatest hit of the early 70s. How did the legendary Deep Purple record their biggest hit? Who gave them the idea. And who got the idea to tie all these strange things together? The story of Deep Purple's song Smoke Over Water.

Preface ...

A new video has surfaced online in which Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover talks about the fire that inspired the hit song for all time "Smoke on the Water".

How was the band's biggest hit, Smoke Over Water, created?

In Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, is the quiet little town of Montreux. Back then, it was the place where retired people went, many, many tea shops and little old ladies seemingly on every corner.

But on 4 December 1971, a giant fire in a local concert hall interrupted the serene life and... made this man - Roger Glover (bassist of Deep Purple) - famous: the fire gave Glover the idea to help write this song - Smoke on the Water.

How it happened...

Deep Purple had just arrived in Switzerland, they planned to record their
the next Machine Head album at a local venue. But they couldn't start until Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention finished their show that day.

The smoke over the water was inspired by the fire at Frank Zappa's...

Roger Glover: "Being big fans, we went to a matinee and watched the Mothers of Invention and Frank. After about an hour or so of the concert, someone fired a flare gun into the ceiling."

The concert ended abruptly and once everyone was safely out. Within five minutes, flames were everywhere. It was just a massive fire and it continued actually all night.

Machine Head's short album

The concert hall turned to ashes. Deep Purple eventually found a new place to record, and feverishly recorded their sixth studio album.

There was one problem though. The album was getting short... And then the band thought, why don't we write a song about what we happened to see here in Montreux.

Roger Glover's idea

It was then that Roger recalled a vision of him returning to Montreux.

About a day or two after the fire, I woke up one morning with four words that I had apparently said out loud. They seemed to hang in the room as I opened my eyes. And I sort of said to myself: what did I just say? "Smoke on the water or something like that. Smoke on the water. Well, it could be a fire story."

And so we sat down and literally wrote the words to it probably in about 15 minutes. The song became a surprise hit for the band. This incident taught Roger a valuable lesson.

"You give out the best when you're relaxed and you're not really trying to come up with a hit, you just do it."," he said. "I think when you don't know what you might end up getting out of it, it's always fun."

Roger Glover tells the story in more detail in the video.....