The U.S. national anthem is familiar to most people as a patriotic tune played by military bands, side effects or sung reverently in an operatic style. At Woodstock, information pills Jimi Hendrix reinvented it from top to bottom as a showcase for what could be done with extreme, high-volume electric guitar distortion, his riffs often interpreted as mimicking weapons explosions and bombs dropping from the sky. Asked by Dick Cavett on national television shortly after the festival about whether the version was blasphemous, Hendrix simply stated, “I thought it was beautiful.”