"1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)"
Song by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Album	Electric Ladyland
Released	October 16 1968
Recorded	1968
Genre	Psychedelic Rock, Avant-Garde
Length	13:39
Label	Reprise
Writer	Jimi Hendrix
Producer	Jimi Hendrix
Electric Ladyland track listing
Rainy Day, Dream Away (10) "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" (11) Moon, Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away (12)

"1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" is a song by Jimi Hendrix, performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on their 1968 album Electric Ladyland. "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" is often cited as one of Jimi Hendrix's most psychedelic songs, while Hendrix sings in a so called "spiritual" way^{[citation needed]}. Unfortunately, Hendrix and his band never played the song live.

The song features an intro in the Dorian mode with a recurring phrase. The song details the narrator's dissatisfaction with nuclear holocaust ("Giant pencil and lipstick-tube shaped things continue to rain and cause screamin' pain"). He decides "not to die but to be reborn" as a merman using a homemade machine, despite his friends' assertions that the machine would never save him, and that it would be contrary "the will of God, and the grace of the King." After one last playing of the "holocaust" theme, the song shifts to the sounds of underwater as simulated by various cymbals and bells. This portion features Chris Wood of Traffic playing the flute. This portion of the song concludes with the narrator attending a show in "Atlantis full of cheers." The song then reprises the initial theme and fades into "Moon, Turn The Tides...Gently Gently Away".

At 13 minutes 39 seconds, it is the second longest song in the Jimi Hendrix Experience's studio catalogue, surpassed only by "Voodoo Chile."

An alternative view suggests that the narrator, and his chosen female campanion, depart from the inherent suffering of the world (buddhism reference) to a place of peace and healing (Atlantis).

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