![]() ![]() Left with an expensive mobile recording unit and no place to record, the band was forced to scout the town for another place to set up. The "Funky Claude" running in and out is referring to Claude Nobs, the director of the Montreux Jazz Festival who helped some of the audience escape the fire. ![]() The "smoke on the water" that became the title of the song (credited to bass guitarist Roger Glover, who related how the title occurred to him when he suddenly woke from a dream a few days later) referred to the smoke from the fire spreading over Lake Geneva from the burning casino as the members of Deep Purple watched the fire from their hotel across the lake. The resulting fire destroyed the entire casino complex, along with all the Mothers' equipment. Somebody in the audience had fired a flare gun into the ceiling, at which point the rattan covering started to burn, as mentioned in the "some stupid with a flare gun" line. In the middle of Don Preston's synthesizer solo on "King Kong", the place suddenly caught fire. On the eve of the recording session a Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention concert was held in the casino's theatre. The lyrics of the song tell a true story: on 4 December 1971 Deep Purple had set up camp in Montreux, Switzerland to record an album using a mobile recording studio (rented from the Rolling Stones and known as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio - referred to as the "Rolling truck Stones thing" and "the mobile" in the song lyrics) at the entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux Casino (referred to as "the gambling house" in the song lyric). €œWe all came out to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline / to make records with a mobile, we didn't have much time.†![]() This song is known for and recognizable by its central theme, a four-note "blues scale" melody harmonized in parallel fourths. ![]()
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