# Inhabitants of the Deep Purple Universe
**URL:** https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261
**Category:** Deep Purple and family
**Created:** [September 30, 2026, 7:35am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261 "2026-09-30T07:35:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zenos\_toytus](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Zenos_toytus)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 7:35am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/1 "2026-09-30T07:35:28Z")
I was going through in my head and there is actually quite a bit of people who have been immortalized on a Deep Purple record. This list includes _people_ _called_ _by an actual name_ in songs written by anyone (so while we know quite a bit about _Living Wreck_, they don’t have a name, while “little miss Molly” counts even if we get to know very little). Some of them are real, some entirely fictional, but most, I guess, are fictional fusions of several people. Here are the ones I found, tell me if and when I missed someone!
Joe (going to go to Mexico)
Taliesyn (bard, worth more than 300 salmon)
Emmaretta (was sent a letter)
Lalena (sex worker)
Rosemary (not on birth control I gues)
Molly (miss, rocking in the house of blue light)
Nancy (with a face “nothing fancy”)
Claude (Funky)
Mary Long (a hypocrite)
Lucy (sweet, dancer)
Mitzi Dupree (queen of the ping pong business)
Anya (spirit of freedom)
Ted (a mechanic)
Rosa (has a cantina)
Cisco etc. (going down together)
Jack Ruby (just like he did)
Louie (evil)
Grover and Gillian (the two mr.'s who must have made a million)
Eddy (two-tone)
Vincent Price (back again)
Johnny Jones (woke up from dreaming)
Bill (bass)
Pete (joined a cult in LA)
Benny (crazy)
Joanna (old, used to be in every bar)
Sally (long, tall)
Dave (short, fat)
Jenny (…Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…)
Jackson (Colonel)
Hickory (Old)
Charlene (just arrived in the city)
Joe (Ring-tone)
Renee (full of guilt)
Billy (arrogant)
Jessica (has a bra)
Mary (big)
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### Author:  [@AndreA](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/AndreA)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 8:59am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/2 "2026-09-30T08:59:03Z")
Jon San and La Janette, John Wayne, and Geronimooo.. 🎶
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### Author:  [@Erik](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Erik)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 10:15am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/3 "2026-09-30T10:15:07Z")
Crazy Horse …not to forget
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### Author:  [@Erik](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Erik)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 10:15am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/4 "2026-09-30T10:15:52Z")
Nancy, sweet, was so fancy
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### Author:  [@MacBeath](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/MacBeath)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 10:41am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/5 "2026-09-30T10:41:59Z")
Harley
Moronica Queen of the Biz, her friend Flash Harry and Fat Head Larry.
Plus “your mum” 😉
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### Author:  [@MacBeath](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/MacBeath)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 10:46am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/6 "2026-09-30T10:46:16Z")
And let’s not forget Pete and his house built on a slope.
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### Author:  [@AndreA](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/AndreA)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 10:51am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/7 "2026-09-30T10:51:24Z")
Frank Zappa?
even though it appears in one of the less famous songs… 🤣
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### Author:  [@Stargazer](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Stargazer)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2026, 4:33pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/8 "2026-09-30T16:33:22Z")
Mitzi is rightfully the most famous one even though she plopped on the scene from nowhere, I’m a great fan of her.
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### Author:  [@Zenos\_toytus](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Zenos_toytus)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 9:53am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/9 "2026-10-01T09:53:47Z")
Yeah that was an easy one to overlook! Funky Claude was running in and out, but the best place around was too much for me. 😅
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### Author:  [@Zenos\_toytus](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Zenos_toytus)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 9:59am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/10 "2026-10-01T09:59:30Z")
I knew I could not get everything right the first time, but I think we’re pretty good here by now. One of the things that make many of these characters so interesting is the personal detail in which they are described. I mean you can vividly imagine Ted or Mitzi (okay you might not need to even imagine Mitzi), and while there is vitriol towards Mary Long, she’s there alright, or even when Lucy exists to crack a series of backdoor jokes, she still comes out as a person.
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### Author:  [@Stargazer](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Stargazer)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 12:06pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/11 "2026-10-01T12:06:45Z")
Mary Long is actually two people, IG merged them together.
> **[The Story Behind The Song: Mary Long by Deep Purple](https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-mary-long-by-deep-purple)**
>
> A song with a lyric that merged Mary Whitehouse's infamous clean-up campaign with tensions caused by Ritchie Blackmore.
> **[Mary Whitehouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse)**
>
> Constance Mary Whitehouse (née Hutcheson; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British teacher and conservative activist. She campaigned against social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, through which she led a longstanding campaign against the BBC. A hard-line social conservative, she was termed a reactionary by her social
> **[Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Pakenham,_7th_Earl_of_Longford)**
>
> Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (5 December 1905 – 3 August 2001), known to his family as Frank Longford and styled Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician and social reformer. A member of the Labour Party, he was one of its longest-serving politicians. He held cabinet positions on several occasions between 1947 and 1968. Longford was politically active until his death in 2001. A member of an old, landed Anglo-Irish family, the Pakenhams (who became Earls of Lon...
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### Author:  [@Zenos\_toytus](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Zenos_toytus)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 1:14pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/12 "2026-10-01T13:14:10Z")
Mary Long is one of those songs that’s basically just casual misogyny on the surface, but when you study the backstory, it does get more nuanced (since the character is an amalgamation of a man and a woman).
But still, one of the things I have wondered over the years is that why he chose the feminine form to be the nominal representative of everything reactionary. In the context of the times, it was of course easier to make fun of the prudish woman archetype. Also “we didn’t give a thought about the potential implications” is probably a major factor, as with very much everything young men did in 1972 (or 2026, no doubt).
And of course it sits perfectly in line with Smooth Dancer, where a certain man is given a female form and then berated… 😉
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### Author:  [@nick](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/nick)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2026, 10:03pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/13 "2026-10-01T22:03:30Z")
Or it could be that Mary Long was easier to work into the rhythm and rhyme of the lyrics.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…
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### Author:  [@nick](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/nick)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/14 "2026-10-04T21:30:58Z")
9 posts were split to a new topic: [Cunning linguistics](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/cunning-linguistics/265)
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### Author:  [@Zenos\_toytus](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Zenos_toytus)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 3:27am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/15 "2026-10-02T03:27:56Z")
Yeah, just given the amount of non-thought put into these things then it was definitely a cigar.
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### Author:  [@Dmjb](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Dmjb)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 7:42am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/16 "2026-10-02T07:42:04Z")
Of course Ted was a pseudonym.
“His name wasn’t Ted. Actually, his name was Martin as far as I remember and he was a wine merchant but that didn’t scan well.” Outro 14th September 2002
“Here’s a story about a guy I met in a bar a long time ago. Edward his name was and he worked on motor cars.” London Astoria 17th January 2006
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### Author:  [@Stargazer](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Stargazer)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 1:48pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/17 "2026-10-02T13:48:44Z")
Ted was likely more than one person too.
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### Author:  [@nick](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/nick)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/18 "2026-10-02T19:01:46Z")
To summarize: “She wasn’t from Tokyo, and she wasn’t really a woman…”
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### Author:  [@Stargazer](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/u/Stargazer)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2026, 12:09am UTC](https://forum.thehighwaystar.com/t/inhabitants-of-the-deep-purple-universe/261/19 "2026-10-05T00:09:56Z")
… but had great aim with ping pong balls to circle back to one of my favorite subjects?