Keith Richards’ recurring riff on “Can't You Hear Me Knocking”: Anyone wanting to know how Richards earned the nickname “the human riff” should start with this song, off of 1971’s Sticky Fingers, that showcases the guitarist’s uncanny ability to craft the unforgettable guitar riffs that have served as foundations to countless Rolling Stones songs. The guitarist employs his signature open G guitar tuning, facilitating the looseness of the sound. The tone’s dirty, and the effect’s hypnotic. The grungy, rhythmic feel of this two-chord riff stands in stark contrast to lead guitarist Mick Taylor’s flowing, melodic extended jam in the song’s outro. No rock song has ever been better bookended.
The opening chord of The Beatles’ "A Hard Day's Night”: This chord, which guitarist George Harrison described as an F add 9 chord, is the single most famous standalone chord in rock. Harrison, playing his 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar, is often credited with the chord, but it was a group effort. John Lennon, simultaneously played a straight F chord on his six-string guitar, Paul McCartney played a low D note on his bass guitar, and computer analysis reveals that producer George Martin, playing a Steinway piano, added key notes as well. It was a complex effort for about three seconds of sound, but the harmonic richness achieved, along with a hint of dissonance, etches the sound into the brain. That dissonance gives it an unresolved quality that creates a sense of anticipation for the vocals to begin.
Eight seconds of Pat Metheny’s guitar on “Message to a Friend”: This beautiful, delicate moment takes place from 2:30 to 2:38 on this introspective song off of Metheny and bassist Charlie Haden’s Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), released in 1998. Something intimate is shared here, beginning with preliminary thoughts and emotions expressed to a close friend. Metheny’s smooth, lyrical guitar work suggests a human voice, while the song consists of soft passages interspersed with slightly louder moments, just as in human speech. It takes two minutes to build up to what sounds like a sweet, eight-second revelation of heartbreaking poignancy. Every time I listen to this song I'm waiting for these eight seconds, and the emotional wallop is the same every time. But it's not covered in the media like the other magical musical moments on this list. It's too subtle, plus it's jazz fusion, not rock ‘n’ roll.
The Intro to the Jimmy Hendrix Experience’s “Purple Haze”: Hendrix’s loose, fluid playing style, along with his signature bends and vibratos, is on full display here in one of the most recognizable intros in rock history. The power of the music is enhanced by a feeling of dissonance achieved via the use of a tritone, also known as the “Devil’s interval.” A tritone is formed by two notes that are six semitones apart—e.g. B and F. This interval has traditionally been avoided in Western music, particularly during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, due to its unsettling effect that was once considered satanic. In Hendrix’s hands, it sounds tense and psychedelic. The guitarist milked the sound for every ounce of dissonant power he could produce, using harmony to mitigate its disquieting effect on the ear. It sounds like the beginning of a hallucination.
Verse two of Warren Zevon’s “Desperados Under the Eaves”: “And if California slides into the ocean/like the mystics and statistics say it will/I predict this motel will be standing/until I pay my bill.” How many songwriters can be this clever in describing the down-and-out feeling of being too broke to pay one’s motel bill? This is a personal song by Zevon, depicting a difficult time for him in the 1960s when he was drifting from fleabag to fleabag in L.A. As his wife Crystal tells it, one night Beach Boys member David Marks pulled into the alley behind the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel and Zevon slipped out the bathroom window to the getaway car. Crystal said he returned to the place years later and tried to pay the bill, but the hotel settled for a signed copy of his album, Asylum.
The song is haunting and emotionally complex in its depiction of despair and alcoholism (“Still wakin' up in the mornings with shakin' hands”), but it's leavened by Zevon’s grace and wit. There's no call for pity in his voice or words—more like a shrug. It's a sardonic account of a personal breakdown told with style. The air conditioner hum Zevon mentions listening to is the droning sound of emptiness and despair, and Zevon can't avoid that sound at the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel.
The resolution in the chorus of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby”: Released as a single in August 1963, this song was written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. Though it has an old-time, doo wop feel to it, this 60s anthem to romance still sounds fresh due to the song structure, producer Phil Spector's “Wall of Sound,” and Ronnie Spector’s soaring vocals. “Be My Baby” stood out as an affirmation of the universal longing for eternal love.
The verses serve as setups for the climactic resolution of the chorus. Spector sings, “Oh, since the day I saw you/I have been waiting for you/You know I will adore you ’til eternity.” The chord structure builds anticipation, preparing the listener for the thrilling resolution when Spector sings: “So won't you please/Be my little baby/Say you'll be my darlin'/Be my baby now/Oh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.” Ronnie Spector delivers one of pop music’s most arresting vocal performances in this song. When Brian Wilson first heard the chorus, he said he had to pull over to the side of the road to collect himself.
The coda to the Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up”: “Surf’s Up” is the Beach Boys’ best song. It didn't make a big splash over the radio waves, so it remains a buried treasure with an ethereal ending. Originally intended for Smile, the album abandoned in 1967 that Brian Wilson intended to take his music to previously unimagined heights, "Surf's Up” has nothing to do with surfing. Wilson was now working with Van Dyke Parks—a specialist in literate, complex lyrics—who conjured up words like these for “Surf’s Up”: “A blind class aristocracy/Back through the opera glass you see/The pit and the pendulum drawn/Columnated ruins domino.”
The coda floats away even deeper into dreamland, taking a song that’s already a masterpiece to the next level. The instrumentation’s muted, allowing the layered vocal harmonies to convey the feeling with words like these: “A children's song/Have you listened as they play?/Their song is love/And the children know the way.” The body of “Surf's Up” is a sometimes melancholy rumination on what the adults have lost (that it’s a paraphrase of Wordworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up” doesn’t matter). The coda’s an open-hearted, sincere meditation on the redemptive power of the children to fix what's been broken.
The key change in Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me To The Moon”: Key changes (modulations) in music aren’t easy to detect to the untrained ear. They're a shift in gears that operate in a stealth capacity in their ability to alter the mood or tenor of a song. In this song, it's a subtle (semitone) move from C major to D flat major, meaning it's an upward modulation (left to right on a keyboard). It happens right after “Fill my heart with song/And let me sing forever more,” with the upward movement adding a brightness to the lyrics: “In other words, hold my hand,” which is the “hook.” It's a common, stylish jazz move that elevates the power of that hook. Sinatra, a master of phrasing, handles it with his usual grace and subtlety.
Merry Clayton's backup vocals on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”: As gospel singer Merry Clayton recounts the story, she got a late-night call, as she was getting ready for bed, informing her that an English band—”the Rolling somebodies”—wanted her to sing with them. Minutes later, they picked up her up in her pajamas and took her to Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood, where she sang along with Mick Jagger—“rape, murder, it's just a shot away.”
Jagger asked her if she wanted to try it again. She agreed, deciding to ramp up the menace of those lyrics—”blow them out of this room,” in her words. Ramping up her gospel-trained power-voice an octave above the first take, she added a bone-chilling element to a song already fraught with dread over the collapse of society. In a short, unexpected visit to the recording studio, Clayton created a transcendent moment in rock history, transforming a backup vocal into the essence of the song.
The ending to The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”:
Beatles producer George Martin called this a “musical orgasm.” Indeed, it's one of the most stunning moments in the history of popular music—one that produces an unparalleled sense of finality. The band brought an orchestra into the studio, instructing each musician to start quietly with the lowest note on their instrument and increase the volume as they moved towards the highest note on their instruments over 24 bars. Martin told them to make this musical ascent in their own way without worrying about what anyone else was playing. The result was orchestral chaos creating a feeling of swirling ascent that has listeners wondering where this unsettling climb will end.
The band decided that a non-orchestral conclusion was needed. John, Paul, Ringo, and Mal Evans (Beatles’ roadie/personal assistant) gathered around three pianos and a harmonium, all of them playing an E major chord that the sound engineer made ring out for 40 striking seconds. The result was both grand and calming. The orchestral buildup is unnerving, suggesting a pessimistic conclusion, but the final chord is optimistic, relieving all the tension.