The song "Smoke on the Water" was recorded by the British rock group Deep Purple and first released in 1972. The song had a global reach and contributed to Deep Purple's success and fandom. Smoke on the Water is also relevant to music education. The basic guitar riff in the song is easy to learn and has attracted many, especially boys and young men, to play guitar. And even today, 50 years later, it is common for pupils to know this riff and gladly show it to their teachers when they start taking music lessons. The purpose of the research project is therefore to analyse, problematize, and describe how and why Smoke on the Water has been important and how the song has contributed to music education and to get young people interested in guitar playing. The study finds its theoretical ground in the American psychologist Jerome Bruner’s nine tenets, all highly relevant to research in music education, complemented by other theories in pedagogy, economics, sociology, musicology, and gender studies. The empirical design includes interviews with music teachers, music leaders, music students and musicians in different countries as well as interviews with some original members of Deep Purple. The analysis confirms that it is a very well-known riff and that students in higher music education, still today, in general know the song Smoke on the Water well. Many also state that they have played the song in ensembles of various kinds. Many have also sung it. But despite this, most of the participating students in higher music education were ignorant to the lyrics, also among the singers who stated that they had performed the song. These findings are empirically surprising and leads to new questions and in-depth analyses. Why are the lyrics, for the students, clearly subordinate to the musical content? This, despite that previous research clearly shows that the lyrics, for many average listeners, can be just as, or even more, important as the music itself. Is this an example of an unspoken hierarchical value system in higher music education? These results indicate a field of tension, regarding what is important in a musical performance and in a piece of music, like Smoke on the Water, between those who perform and those who listen. The example above shows how this study can be used to clear the smoke and visualize areas with development potential within higher music education.