How One Simple Food May Have Inspired A Jimi Hendrix Classic

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"The Wind Cries Mary" may be one of Jimi Hendrix's most emotionally vulnerable songs, but it probably wouldn't have existed if not for a simple, everyday food item: mashed potatoes. The soulful tune isn't about the dish per se, but a fight that started because of it. Hendrix wrote "The Wind Cries Mary" as a reconciliatory ballad after an argument with then-girlfriend Kathy Mary Etchingham over her mashed potatoes.

In her 1998 book, "Through Gypsy Eyes", Etchingham recounted how the fight that led to the song played out: "Once he was moaning about my cooking again and I felt I had put a lot of effort into whatever it was — mashed potatoes probably. I didn't take kindly to being told they were disgusting, so I picked up the plate and smashed it on the floor." In later interviews, Etchingham would reveal more details about their tempestuous argument, including why Hendrix was so irate about the dish.

Decades later, Etchingham shared that she had hit the legendary musician with a frying pan at some point during the fight. She also said that Hendrix's chief complaint about her mashed potatoes was that they were too lumpy. Etchingham admitted to taking such great offense at his comments that she stormed out, hopped into a taxi, and left. By the time she'd returned to their shared home, Hendrix had finished writing the song. It's amusing to think that if Etchingham had just known a few more things about fixing ruined mashed potatoes, we may never have had "The Wind Cries Mary."

Naturally, there may be some skepticism over such a simple food issue becoming the underlying catalyst for Jimi Hendrix writing "The Wind Cries Mary". According to the book "Jimi Hendrix: The Stories Behind the Songs", the lyrics "Somewhere a queen is weeping / Somewhere a king has no wife" were discovered in a poem Hendrix had written to another girlfriend, Mary Washington. Based on this information alone, it's possible that the "Mary" in the song actually refers to Washington, and not Kathy Mary Etchingham.

The book's theory is quickly shot down, however, by two facts. First, the official Jimi Hendrix website explicitly acknowledges that the song was written after Hendrix's fight with Etchingham. Second, Etchingham was, in fact, "Mary" to Hendrix: "We used to jokingly call each other by our middle names. Jimi was 'Marshall,' and I was 'Mary,'" she shared on a segment of the BBC's "Witness" in 2014.

The final bit of proof supporting mashed potatoes' role in the genesis of "The Wind Cries Mary" comes from an interview with the now-defunct U.K. music publication, Melody Maker. At the time, Hendrix had started living in London and shared his thoughts on British food. "See, English food, it's difficult to explain. You get mashed potatoes with just about everything, and I ain't gonna say anything good about that," he said (via the Independent). While there may be a lot of mashed potato myths you should stop believing, the story about its role in Hendrix's songwriting process is apparently rooted in fact.