10 Legendary Songs That Were Completely Improvised

When many guitar players first heard what Eddie Van Halen was doing, you would have sworn that he had four hands. By using his signature tapping technique, Ed was practically creating a hard rock symphony every time he took a solo, with Eruption being the purest version of his chops. And it's almost by sheer luck that we even have the version that we know on Van Halen's debut record.

While in the process of throwing the songs together, Ed didn't even want to have a lead guitar spot, thinking that it would be a little bit boring in between the heavier songs like Runnin With the Devil. Producer Ted Templeman knew what he had on his hands though, and he was going to need to get crafty to get a good solo out of him. Since Ed would often turn his back to the crowd so no copycats would see what he was doing, what you're hearing on the record is Ted recording Eddie's soundcheck, recorded all in one take as the rest of the band get warmed up.

And from what has been said, this really was lightning in a bottle in just a few minutes. From every solo that Eddie played, none of them would be exactly the same, oftentimes just going in whatever direction that he felt like at the time. On that fateful night though, those 2 minutes became a clinic for budding guitarists on how to shred properly.