Paperjam

Guitar Solos That I Can Listen To Without Getting Really Bored

Music // Jim // 8th August 2006

For one reason or another I’ve had to witness a lot of boring guitar solos lately, you know the drill, two verses gone and its spotlight on the guitar hero to pull faces while wringing ever more excitable noises out of his instrument. The nadir of this was at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert where every single song featured this sort of thing, with the big screens showing intimate close-ups of the fret-wank action. Grown men gazed on in admiration and perhaps even a bit of lust.

I feel totally lost by this, never having had the time or inclination (ie talent or skill) to learn the guitar, I don’t feel the awe when watching someone playing something technically difficult. I like it when it sounds good and actually feels part of the song rather than a bolted on section where someone shows off.

So here are some examples of guitar solos I can cope with, that don’t involved a load of vinegar-strokes gurning or pointlessly over-complicated skills for no good reason:

Hometown Unicorn – Super Furry Animals
Takes you by surprise by kicking in just after the first chorus, absolutely brilliant; chugs along in a stoned, bluesy manner and then promptly fucks off leaving the Super Furries to warble on about unicorns and French UFO abductee Frank Fontaine.

Back In The USSR – The Beatles
From one of The Beatles best and most obviously subversive songs comes eleven seconds of wailing perfection, almost corny but brutally effective – in fact the whole song takes the entire recorded career of The Beach Boys and pisses into its swimming pool, off the top diving board.

Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
From the middle of five minutes of blessed out near perfection (especially if listened to when one is, ahem, a touch tired and emotional) comes a solo that sounds like it has just been coaxed from a deep heroin-induced slumber to put in an appearance. Which may not be all that far from the truth. Used by Richard X for that one he did with Jarvis Cocker. Bizarrely this solo also makes an appearance on the soundtrack of the film Starship Troopers. Honestly it does. It comes on during a punch up and led to me annoying half the cinema in my immense confusion.

Rock And Roll Suicide – David Bowie
Right at the very end of the song, this solo is only 6 seconds long, efficient and memorable. Both Morrissey and Jason Pierce (aka Spiritualized) have made entire songs based on this tiny clip of the late Mick Ronson, well at least he was actually producing Your Arsenal. The on-downers sounding solo featured in Always Crashing In The Same Car (from Low) almost makes the list, but it goes on just a bit too long and has muso, twiddly bits at at the end. The one at the end of Starman is good too.

Metal Mickey – Suede
The first thirty seconds of this was one of the most exciting things I’d ever heard when I was 17. A minute or so later when the solo proper kicks in it is a huge, glam-fuzz sonic assault. The whole thing stops and then Brett starts wailing about her selling the meat again which can only sound a bit anaemic. So was this really supposed to be Thatcher or is it just about a girl in a butchers shop?

Lipstick – Buzzcocks
Easily my favourite Buzzcocks track, bit sinister and with the most straightforward, lets-not-mess-about guitar solo going, leading perfectly back into the gradually rising refrain. In a word: Northern.

Eurostar – The Boo Radleys
Big chorused anthem about really, really missing someone and being totally lonely. Shuffles along nicely in a big, epic manner. When the guitar solo kicks in, rather than triumphant showing off, it seems to indicate deep upset. Tear-jerking. I used to listen to this on the way to work every single day a few years back. What a lot of fun I must have been.

Shut Up – Madness
In a song mostly notable for the belting piano antics and line “I’m as honest as the day is long – The longer the daylight the less I do wrong”, comes this entry, dovetailing nicely with the piano and leading back into one of their best ever choruses. The fact that Foreman played this on a Slade-style guitar while dressed as a comedy policeman can only add to its legend. Although the one he did in The Sun And The Rain dressed as a comedy fireman runs it pretty close. As does the one played on a tennis racquet for Our House.

Chris Foreman: Comedy, legend