Third Stone From The Sun is a primarily instrumental composition written by Jimi Hendrix, recorded with The Jimi Hendrix Experience for their debut album Are You Experienced in 1967. The title refers to Earth as the third planet from the sun, and the piece evokes a sense of cosmic travel through innovative guitar effects, ambient textures, and freeform structure. Sessions took place at De Lane Lea Studios in December 1966 and Olympic Sound Studios in April 1967, with producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer. The track features spoken-word segments, including dialogue between Hendrix and Chandler that was slowed down in the studio to create alien-like vocal effects. Hendrix also employed slowed-down whistling to simulate wind sounds, alongside backwards guitar, feedback, tremolo bar manipulation, and extensive tape effects including panning and reverb. Within Hendrix's catalog, the piece stands apart from his blues-based material as an avant-garde exploration blending jazz-inflected guitar phrasing with psychedelic rock, and it reportedly intimidated contemporaries such as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton with its sonic ambition. The composition has been covered by surf guitar legend Dick Dale on the compilation Better Shred Than Dead and by steel guitarist Joe Goldmark, though it remains more celebrated as a studio creation than as a widely performed piece. A melodic fragment from the track later surfaced in Right Said Fred's 1991 hit I'm Too Sexy.
