Hush
by Deep Purple
- 108
- BPM
- Bb major
- Key
- 6B
- Camelot
- 59
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Joe South wrote "Hush" in a moving car. He and singer Billy Joe Royal were driving to Nashville, and South had been writing "Rose Garden" in the car. Royal did not like it. South wrote "Hush" for him instead, leaning on the dashboard. Royal recorded it on July 12, 1967, with Barry Bailey on guitar. It reached number 52 on the Hot 100. He did record "Rose Garden" for his album, though it never became a single. Lynn Anderson took it to international success in 1971, and Royal later regretted passing on it.
Deep Purple came to the song through Ritchie Blackmore, who heard Royal's version while living in Hamburg. He thought it would suit the band with a different arrangement. They recorded the whole thing in two takes for their 1968 debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, with Rod Evans singing. It became their first hit single, peaking at number 4 on the Hot 100 in September 1968 and number 2 in Canada. In the UK it went largely unnoticed.
Ian Gillan replaced Evans in 1969. He admitted being uneasy about having recorded the song, saying the only person he wanted to hear perform it was Evans.
Hush runs at 108 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.22 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 556 ms. It is in Bb major, Camelot 6B, which shares its notes with G minor and mixes cleanly with Eb major and F major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.