Bipolar Disorder

 Song 769: This week the playlist comes around to Manic Depression by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, written by Jimi, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Jimi included this gem in his first released album, which arrived in the U.S. in the late summer of 1967, but I would not get to hear the tune until I bought the record in the fall of 1970. I first encountered the term in the song's title two years earlier, soon after the beginning of my senior HS year, and what I read at the time was that those with the condition tended to make mountains out of molehills. My first thought in reaction to that phrase was that everyone does that to some extent, and I saw no reason to give any further attention to the ailment. When I got Jimi's album, I gave it lots of spins on the turntable, and I liked all of what I heard, including this diagnosis, but I wondered if Mr. Hendrix was playing a word game with the term. I knew that we songwriters sometimes do that, so I didn't necessarily connect him with the condition in the piece. When, three decades later, I got to the point of having to understand the nature of that problem, I thought it quite likely that he did have bipolar disorder. Then, about another decade later, as I figured out the connection between the manic phase and a charismatic quality that manic types sometimes exude, seeing video footage of JH performing made it clear to me that Manic Depression had indeed captured his soul. If you'd like to know more about manic depression/bipolar disorder, I share my own experience of learning about it in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, and you can get a copy from Amazon of the latest edition of it by clicking on the title.