10 Classic Guitar Riffs That Were Created By Accident

When Deep Purple went in to make Machine Head, that had a specific idea of what they were going for. Free from the more funky stuff they were making on Fireball, the mission statement seemed to be to take things back to simpler tunes, which they succeeded in if Smoke on the Water is any indication. Then again, you'd have to be really reaching for simplicity if something like Space Truckin found its way to classic status.

While songs like Highway Star were written almost as a joke, Space Truckin was originally conceived by Ritchie Blackmore while he was practicing his thumb exercises on the guitar. As he went up and down the neck though, he found one interesting rhythm that seemed to be reminiscent of the Adam West era Batman theme song. Nearly laughing it off, Blackmore took it into Ian Gillan, after which they wrote lyrics centered around going from one planet to the next.

It's not like the ironic style riff was lost on Ritchie either, who would oftentimes do the same thumb exercise that he used to conceive the riff when the band was performing the song live. This was just the beginning of Purple's reign though...it was time to move on to something even more grandiose.