“Up to now,” Jimi Hendrix shares with Record Mirror in 1967, “I’ve written about 100 songs, but most of them are in these New York Hotels I got thrown out of.”

The interview, unearthed by internet music journalism Rock’s Backpages, took place on February 25, 1967.

“I’m not ashamed to say that,” Jimi Hendrix, who had at this point had lived most of his life in poverty, continues.

With his debut album still months away Hendrix hat yet to prove himself to the world with a trio of era-defining albums.

Beside from debut single ‘Hey Joe’, which had peaked at Number 6 in the UK album charts, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was still a relatively unknown act in the UK and a non-entity in Jimi’s home country of the United States.

Hendrix, rarely guarded in interviews, then talks honestly about his songwriting.

“I can’t write no happy songs,” he confided, “‘Foxy Lady’ is about the only happy song I’ve written. [I] don’t feel very happy when I start writing.”

At the time of the conversation, the countercultural cornerstone Are You Experienced was still two months away.

The album contains many songs which with the benefit of hindsight clearly explore the artist’s struggle with depression, not least amongst them ‘Manic Depression’.

“The album will be different,” Jimi Hendrix contends, “all the songs will be mine except for ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and maybe a Muddy Waters number.”

(Neither Bob Dylan‘s ‘Like A Rolling Stone nor that Muddy Waters song in question made the final cut, though Hendrix would later cover Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower‘ on Electric Ladyland.)

Jimi also lays down his musical rationale.

“We like to have our own sound,” he shares, “I’m writing a number ‘I Don’t Live Today’, it’s really weird, man. I hope we can get it ready for the album.”

Unlike the Dylan and Muddy Waters numbers, ‘I Don’t Live Today’, a song honoring Hendrix’s Cherokee heritage, did appear on the album.

The guitarist also cast an optimistic look to the future.