10 Classic Rock Songs That Were Made Out Of Spite

After the era of '60s flower rock, the deepest corners of rock and roll were starting to get a lot more accomplished. With blues band like Led Zeppelin making things heavier and Black Sabbath scaring you to death, Deep Purple was the logical next step in making rock sound like something more than the 12 bar blues. When it came time to write one of their biggest hits though, Ritchie Blackmore kicked things off the only way he knew how...trolling.

Around the time that Machine Head was starting to be written, Purple were on the road touring with some of the obnoxious press traveling in the tour buses with them. Getting more and more tired of the stupid questions that were being asked, Blackmore reached the end of his rope when someone asked how they wrote songs, replying "like this" while just playing an open string and just staring out the window. While the band played this impromptu song in the show that night, the insistent power of the riff was too good to just throw away.

Ramping it up with all of the Purple charm, Highway Star became one of the most celebrated songs of this lineup of the band, complete with Jon Lord unleashing the beast behind the organ and Blackmore eventually sprinkling in some Mozart style guitar arpeggios in his solo. It may have been a touch mean spirited in the beginning, but you should never doubt the power of a good joke response.