One's Own Mind

Jimi Hendrix's performance of the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock sparked widespread controversy as an inappropriate defecation of the sacred anthem. Like Willy Loman, Hendrix was struggling to find an identity, to create art, between society's dream-- the underlying, ringing notes of the anthem (or in Willy's case, the conception of a salesman)-- and his own-- the overwhelming static that ultimately consumes. The result is madness-- a breakdown into disjointed, distorted riffs-- tragically symbolic of the nation's, and Willy's, struggle to distinguish one's own mind from the next.