Let’s All Have A Wank

When I was a small boy, I hated guitar solos like I hated gym class and my father. Punk rock told me they were bad, and being blindly in love, I believed it. As I got older and vaguely smarter and mellowed slightly, I realized that a.) “Layla” was not necessarily my enemy and b.) people like Andy Gill also played guitar solos, albeit a little gnarlier. Rolling Stone recently polled its readership on what they thought were history’s greatest moments of six- or twelve-string onanism, and there are many fine songs in the resulting list of 25, from “Marquee Moon” to “Cinnamon Girl.” (The full list is after the jump.) But frankly, I think we can do better. (Three Pearl Jam songs? “Scar Tissue”? Really?) So I would like for you, commenters, to post your favorite guitar solos, whether canonical or crazily idiosyncratic. (For the record, mine’s the one in “Talk Dirty To Me.”)

1. “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Guns N’ Roses 2. “Freebird,” Lynyrd Skynyrd 3. “One,” Metallica 4. “Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd 5. “Marquee Moon,” Television 6. “Crossroads,” Cream 7. “Purple Rain,” Prince 8. “Machine Gun,” Jimi Hendrix 9. “Ball and Biscuit,” The White Stripes 10. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” The Beatles 11. “Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin 12. “Eruption,” Van Halen 13. “November Rain,” Guns N’ Roses 14. “Alive,” Pearl Jam 15. “Paranoid Android,” Radiohead 16. “Maggot Brain,” Funkadelic 17. “Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival 18. “Time,” Pink Floyd 19. “Hotel California,” Eagles 20. “Cinnamon Girl,” Neil Young 21. “Yellow Ledbetter,” Pearl Jam 22. “Telegraph Road,” Dire Straits 23. “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” Allman Brothers 24. “Soma,” Smashing Pumpkins 25. “Scar Tissue,” Red Hot Chili Peppers

The 25 Coolest Guitar Solos [Rolling Stone]