Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. So, we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines ‘Sweet child in time, you’ll see the line.’ That’s how the lyrical side came in. But then, I had never heard the original ‘Bombay Calling’. It sounded good, and we thought we’d play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. On the musical side, there used to be this song ‘Bombay Calling’ by a band called It’s A Beautiful Day. “There are two sides to that song – the musical side and the lyrical side. Ian Gillan perfectly answered that in an interview: Their protest song eventually went on to become a heavy metal anthem – setting the template for other bands that followed them.īut the question remains: how did it manage to transcend time and generation? How did it become an instant classic and in a way, helped elevate Deep Purple to rock god status? From the blistering guitar solo to Gillan’s powerful high-pitched screams, this highlighted every member’s mastery of their musical instrument – Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, and Roger Glover. There’s always that one track that helped an artist stand out from the rest. Interestingly, it’s also one of the last songs where guitarist Ritchie Blackmore used his Gibson ES-335 before trading it with Fender Stratocasters. Running over 10 minutes, it showcased the band’s virtuosity and musical brilliance. I started singing and the words came easily because we were all aware of the nuclear threat which hovered over us at this time which was probably when the ‘cold war’ was at its hottest.” Jon Lord was dicking around (or ‘extemporising on a theme’ as it’s known in the trade) with a tune from the new album by It’s a Beautiful Day it was ‘Bombay Calling’.

“It was 1969 and the band was rehearsing at a Community Centre in West London it was either Southall or Hanwell.

Loosely based on the Cold War, Ian Gillan once shared:

Deep purple smoke on the water meaning