So I was in the car just now and heard Elvis' "Milkcow Blues Boogie" on the radio. ( I can hear actual good songs on the radio because I have satellite radio! Ten bucks a month! Why don't you?) A great (if, I suppose, horribly misogynist song, though not as bad in that respect as the King's "Hard Headed Woman") (Or possibly worse, because at least in "Hard Headed Woman" he acknowledges that he's singing about a human, as opposed to a cow whose, ahem, milk and butter he misses).
But what I wanted to write about was how Elvis cues the guitar solo with an impassioned cry of "Aw, let's milk it!". Which is kind of gross and almost as bad as his, "Aw, let's play house!" in "Baby, let's play house."
This got me thinking about the best way to announce a guitar solo. I like how on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" they say, "Come in, Doc Watson," but I don't know if that counts, since Doc Watson is blind and so can't respond to a nod of the head or some such.
There's Gene Vincent's "let's rock!" (followed, of course, by "let's rock again!") from "Be-bop-a-lula," but I've heard several other Gene Vincent songs where he says the same thing, and it doesn't really wear well over more than one song.
On the ironic side, you've got a laconic "Go, Johnny Go" on the Beatles' "For You Blue" and Frank Black's laconic "Rock me, Joe" on "Monkey Gone to Heaven"
There are two great ones on the Time's Pandemonium album. Once Morris says, introducing the rockin' guitar solo in the middle of the R&B track, "I feel the need for a change...crossover!" Elsewhere, he says, simply, "Cut 'em, Jesse," which I also like a lot.
If only a guitar solo followed Diamond Dave's "One break...comin' up!" from "Unchained" , that might be the best one ever, but alas, that leads only back to the chorus.
Don't know if this counts, since it's not an extra-lyrical shoutout, but I like how, in the Minutemen's "Political Song For Michael Jackson to Sing," the guitar solo follows the line, "if we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on the guitar solos".
Still casting about, though, for the best guitar solo intro ever. Aside, of course, from Daniel Sokatch's "VIC-TOR!" on the Edge's "Mad at You."
O twenty-point-five daily readers of this blog, what's the best one ever?
