In 2009, Guitar World magazine recognized Mike McCready’s guitar solo in the Pearl Jam song, “Alive,” as one of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time.
The solo is well worth a listen.
Deep into the blanket-like rhythm and texture of the storytelling-rich song, McCready lets the music take over and out of him flows an incredible and spontaneous solo. This solo isn’t about thought or technique; it’s about emotion, about the guitarist letting his fingers move across the strings, finding random notes as they may.
The listener understands that, in the moment of recording, the muse somehow reached down into the studio and granted McCready a moment of spontaneous artist enlightenment, which resulted in a totally unique and memorable guitar solo.
But of course, that interpretation is complete rubbish.
McCready openly admits the guitar solo in “Alive” was all but stolen from the guitar solo in the Kiss song “She,” off of the 1975 album, Dressed to Kill.
Which makes McCready a thief and a fraud, right?
Wrong again.
McCready was continuing a tradition.
The very same tradition Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley was a part of when he stole the guitar solo in “She” from Robbie Krieger’s guitar solo in the 1968 Doors song, “Five to One.”
“Five to One” is a blues song, which means Krieger was almost certainly pulling from the guitarists who came before him when he wrote to the solo in “Five to One.”
Because this is how art works.
Fifties blues becomes sixties rock, which becomes seventies hard rock, and then nineties grunge.
Each artist pulls from what the artist who came before them created, which is why I get so frustrated with “pantsers” and other people who claim to want be successful writers but who refuse to learn the fundamentals of their chosen art form.
McCready wasn’t “touched by the muse” and he wasn’t “lost in the music” when he created one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. He wasn’t “making it up as he went along.” McCready spent years studying his craft and perfecting his art form, and then strategically applied what he learned in a way that felt new and innovative.
If you really want to be an author, stop trying to be so damn original. Stop trying to make it up as you go along. Instead, learn what has come before you and then put your unique spin on it.
McCready is part of legacy that includes Frehley and Krieger.
You are part of a legacy that includes Rowling, Hemingway, Woolf, Dickens, and Austin.
Show respect to the great authors who came before you by taking the time and putting in the effort to learn your craft.
In doing so, you just might end up with the literary equivalent of an unforgettable guitar solo.
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