managed the recording trip, and is referred to as "Funky Claude" in "Smoke on the Water". The opening track, "Highway Star", was written while the group were on a coach travelling to their opening UK tour date in
Portsmouth on 13 September 1971. The band's management arranged for them to travel to the gig with a group of
music journalists who could interview the band at their leisure. One of them asked Blackmore how he wrote songs, upon which he said, "like this", picked up the guitar and played the song's opening riff. Gillan improvised a set of lyrics around: "We're on the road, we're a
rock'n'roll band". The rest of the band completed the arrangement during rehearsals and it was added to the show on the evening of the gig. Blackmore based his guitar solo around a figure that he learned from
Johnny Burnette, and liked its resemblance to
Johann Sebastian Bach. "Maybe I'm A Leo" went under the working title of "One Just Before Midnight", which appears in a picture of a recording sheet on the album sleeve. The finished title and lyrics refer to Gillan's
birth sign. Glover wrote the song's main riff after listening to
John Lennon's "
How Do You Sleep?", and he liked that the riff did not start on the first beat of the bar. The song was played live once in 1972 at a BBC In Concert performance. It became a live favourite years later, after
Joe Satriani temporarily joined the band in 1993. "Pictures of Home" describes the sights and images of the local area around Montreux, far away from home. The track was initially recorded with a drum introduction, which was left off the original recording; however, it was added for the 25th anniversary reissue. The track was also played live after Satriani joined Deep Purple. As well as Deep Purple, Gillan has performed the song live as part of his solo career, and during his brief time with Black Sabbath in 1983. "Lazy" was first played live during the 1971 UK tour, and retained throughout the following year. It was performed towards the end of the live show, replacing the instrumental workout "
Wring That Neck", and was later moved mid-set in early 1972. Glover said the song was roughly based on an
Oscar Brown song, "Sleepy", while Blackmore stated it was inspired by
Eric Clapton's "Stepping Out". The song was designed to be a vehicle for various instrumental showcases, including an unaccompanied organ introduction and Gillan's harmonica. Blackmore recorded the guitar solos in sections on two different days, which were then joined. "
Space Truckin'" was written as a pastiche of 1950s rock 'n' roll lyrics, but with a science fiction theme. Deep Purple began thinking of nonsense phrases such as "music in our solar system" that would fit. Paice played a short drum solo on the track. It was first played live in January 1972 at the next gig following the Montreux sessions, and led into the instrumental section of the earlier live showcase "
Mandrake Root" as the closing number. The song remained the last number in the set after Gillan and Glover left the band in 1973, including a memorable performance at the
California Jam the following year, where Blackmore set fire to his amplifiers and destroyed a TV camera with his guitar. The song was regularly played as a wakeup call by the crew on board the
Space Shuttle program flight
STS-107 in 2003. A ballad entitled "
When a Blind Man Cries" was recorded during the
Machine Head sessions, but was not included on the album. Instead, it was used as the
B-side on the "Never Before" single. The song appears as a bonus track on the 25th anniversary edition of
Machine Head. ==Release and artwork==