The Story Behind the Greatest Guitar Solo in Rock History

The Dark Energies Behind Prince's Moment of Genius

The New York Times has a long magazine piece about a new documentary series on Prince which may never see the light of day, despite having been commissioned and produced by Netflix. The director, Ezra Edelman, made that extraordinary OJ Simpson documentary, and is a real artist of the form. But Prince’s estate are blocking it, because it gives an unvarnished picture of its subject. Prince was a genius and also a profoundly messed-up person who sometimes behaved in appalling ways.

This isn’t a post about Prince in the round but a spotlight on one of the greatest moments in rock history: the solo he played on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, for George Harrison’s posthumous induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. The documentary, or what we learn of it from this piece, gives us new insight into the turbulent psychological energies that powered Prince’s performance that night.

He was a last-minute addition to the line-up. Olivia Harrison’s idea was that While My Guitar Gently Weeps should be played by a group of musicians who knew and loved George, led by his close friend Tom Petty, and including George and Olivia’s son Dhani. But Prince was also being inducted that night, and the organisers, who knew it would make great TV, persuaded Olivia to let him join them.

The group already had the song arranged and rehearsed, so Petty suggested Prince play a solo to see the song out. Perhaps because the cameras weren’t set up for it, or perhaps to create a surprise, we barely see Prince for most of the song. If you know who you’re looking for, you can glimpse him in the shadows at the right of the stage, at 1:21.¹ Prince steps forward for his solo at about 3:20. You can tell it’s happening before we get a shot of him, because we can see the excitement in Dhani’s face.

The performance, up to this point, has been fine but somewhat passionless. The group sing and play perfectly well but the song plods a little, making you realise how important Paul and Ringo’s kinetic interplay is to the intensity of the original. It feels too dutiful to come alive. Prince then proceeds to play a solo that turns the song inside out.

He announces himself with absolute authority with a D high up on the neck of his guitar followed by a mournful series of downward bends. The song is in A Minor; choosing to enter on a D conveys departure, a sense that we’re striking out for somewhere new. Prince quickly pulls the song into new harmonic territory, emphasising G major, mixing defiance with sadness. Then comes an astonishing, baroque-style pattern he plays just after the four minute mark, followed by a five-note motif that sounds perfectly composed. There’s also a deliberate reference to Eric Clapton’s solo, just to let us know he knows the original intimately. (I learned this from the guitarist Michael Palmisano).

Now that we’re fully in Prince’s world, as mesmerised by his movements as much as his music, he pulls a rabbit out of his red hat, falling off the stage and returning to it in one seamless motion. This must have taken forethought and enormous nerve, as well as extraordinary skill. Prince obviously had to prepare his bodyguard for it (presuming that’s who it is). You can see him make eye contact just before he turns around; then he falls and stays there for a couple of seconds (Dhani’s face!) before coming up. And he does this while playing: he falls while playing a musical line which climaxes on a bending note that takes him back to the home chord, just as the bodyguard pushes him back on to the stage.

Think of all the ways in which this could have gone wrong. It’s not so much that he could have injured himself; it’s that it could have looked effortful and awkward. But he executes it perfectly. It is a moment of grace which resembles nothing so much as a baptism.

After this, he takes a pause, and grins at Petty, as if to say, ‘You like that? I’ve got more'. These little looks, these winks and smiles, are not so much gestures of camaraderie as power, the conjuror letting us know that he is in utter command of his magic. He launches into a new solo that goes to a searing, crying D, before hitting what might be the climax of the whole solo, a series of octaves coming up the neck of the guitar culminating in syncopated, modernist triplets. He lands on a note which puts him back in perfect harmony with the group. He does all this while grinning at Petty. Am I gonna bring this home? Trust me.

Prince rounds the whole thing off with the perfect little phrase, throws the guitar behind him and walks off. This last gesture - the walking off - is bravura theatre, but it also keys us into the emotion behind Prince’s performance: cold fury…