"Music is my religion"
About this Quote
Hendrix isn’t trying to sound pious; he’s declaring allegiance. “Music is my religion” borrows the language of faith to describe something more demanding than taste and more intimate than a job. Religion is a structure: ritual, surrender, community, ecstasy, doctrine. Hendrix grabs that whole apparatus and plugs it into an amplifier, implying that for him the sacred isn’t found in pews or creeds but in volume, improvisation, and the hard discipline of chasing a sound no one else can hear yet.
The subtext is both defiant and protective. In the late 1960s, a Black guitarist crossing blues, psychedelia, and rock was constantly being categorized, marketed, and policed by expectations - racial, cultural, commercial. Calling music his religion is a way to sidestep everybody else’s authority. If music is the faith, then the stage becomes a sanctuary and the only “truth” that matters is what happens in the moment: feedback tamed into melody, chaos turned into feeling. It’s also a quiet confession of isolation: religions provide belonging, and Hendrix was famous enough to be surrounded and singular enough to be alone.
It works because it’s a simple sentence with an outsized claim, the kind pop culture remembers. Hendrix reframes artistry as devotion, not self-expression for its own sake but a lifelong practice with consequences. The line makes the guitar less like an instrument and more like a conduit.
The subtext is both defiant and protective. In the late 1960s, a Black guitarist crossing blues, psychedelia, and rock was constantly being categorized, marketed, and policed by expectations - racial, cultural, commercial. Calling music his religion is a way to sidestep everybody else’s authority. If music is the faith, then the stage becomes a sanctuary and the only “truth” that matters is what happens in the moment: feedback tamed into melody, chaos turned into feeling. It’s also a quiet confession of isolation: religions provide belonging, and Hendrix was famous enough to be surrounded and singular enough to be alone.
It works because it’s a simple sentence with an outsized claim, the kind pop culture remembers. Hendrix reframes artistry as devotion, not self-expression for its own sake but a lifelong practice with consequences. The line makes the guitar less like an instrument and more like a conduit.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Jimi Hendrix: 'Music is my religion.' Quoted in Rolling Stone Interview, 1969. |
| Featured | This quote was our Quote of the Day on March 15, 2023 |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hendrix, Jimi. (2026, January 11). Music is my religion. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/music-is-my-religion-7893/
Chicago Style
Hendrix, Jimi. "Music is my religion." FixQuotes. January 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/music-is-my-religion-7893/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Music is my religion." FixQuotes, 11 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/music-is-my-religion-7893/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
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