The "La Villa Strangiato" Solo: Putting Most Guitar Solos To Shame Since 1978

(skip to 3:53)

There are just some things that I will never ever get tired of, maybe for as long as I live. Among those in that category include eggplant sandwiches, watching old episodes of Spongebob, masturbation, and, of course, listening to various versions of Alex Lifeson's "La Villa Strangiato" solo.

Unlike some of my other posts that fit into a vein similar to this, I'm not gonna give you some long boring back-story telling you every detail about when I first heard the solo and the impact it had on me, mainly because it's unnecessary and it's not that interesting to begin with. I just got the Hemispheres album as a birthday or Christmas present a few years back and that's when I first heard the solo, end of story. It greatly impressed me upon first listen, and it's grown on me more and more over the years and now I'd place it as my second favorite guitar solo of all time. So what's number one? That spot is held by Mikael Akerfeldt's two short solos on the Damnation track "Windowpane", which you can wring a total of one gallon of raw emotion out 'em if you could.

So why write about this solo and not the other two? The "Windowpane" solos, while they are impressive, don't make much sense outside of the context of the song while the "Strangiato" solo stands entirely on its own. To tell you the truth, most of the time I listen to this song I just skip to the solo, listen to it, and stop the track. Lifeson and his furious guitar technique steals the show and almost makes me forget that the rest of the song even exists.

The solo itself comes out of nowhere. After a classical guitar introduction, the song builds up into a main theme that's anthemic, energetic, and cheerful until the 3:33 mark when things die down to nothing but a deceptively simple sounding drum beat by Neil Peart. Lifeson begins his work with what sounds like an e-bow playing a series of loose, dreamy phrases, and what sets this solo apart from so many others is how it becomes more and more and more complex in its duration. Lifeson is in no rush (pun not intended), he lets every phase of his solo cook into you until he moves on, keeping you at the edge of your seat waiting to hear what happens next. He finally leads you into an exuberant orgy of shred guitar bliss which should cause anyone listening to shake their heads in disbelief (this is especially true for the live version of the solo you can listen to above.) The solo ends abruptly and breaks into a simple palm-muted arpeggio; a perfect ending after such an intense display of guitar mastery.

Heavy metal nerds like me live for shit like this. Hell, there's probably some music theory genius out there who has transcribed this entire solo onto a few pieces of fucking staff paper, and that's cool and all, but that's not how I want to look at it. It's the emotion that's pouring out of this music that's most important to me. It came from Lifeson's mind, through his fingers, played with his pick causing the steel strings to vibrate which was picked up by the the magnets of the pickups, through the copper wire, sent through an instrument cable, and out of an amp. Isn't it amazing how so little was lost in translation?