Single:
Smoke on the Water entered the Australian singles chart* on 22 October 1973 and peaked at #54.
Album:
The song is on Machine Head which entered the Australian albums chart* on 29 May 1972. It reached #1 on 26 June 1972 where it remained for 2 weeks.
Songwriters:
Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice
Producer:
Deep Purple
Record label of Australian release:
Purple
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Deep Purple performs Smoke on the Water in Sydney, Australia on 13 December 1984:
BONUS CLIP BELOW – the story behind Smoke on the Water
Songfacts:
This song took inspiration from a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland in 1971. The band was going to start recording their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa’s show, which set the place on fire.
Deep Purple watched the blaze from a nearby restaurant, and when the fire died down, a layer of smoke had covered Lake Geneva, which the casino overlooked. This image gave bass player Roger Glover the idea for a song title: “Smoke On The Water,” and Ian Gillan wrote the lyric about their saga recording the Machine Head album.
The band was relocated to the Grand Hotel in Montreux, where they recorded the album using the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio. They needed one more song, so they put together Smoke On The Water using Gillan’s lyric and the riff guitarist Ritchie Blackmore came up with.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/deep-purple/smoke-on-the-water
Lyrics:
We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time
But Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Click for full lyrics
This song is also on our Spotify playlist Bang a Gong – the 70s
Find more songs to enjoy: Bang a Gong song finder
BONUS CLIP
The story behind Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water
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