10 Perfect Rock Guitar Riffs
5. Day Tripper - The Beatles
When talking about the greatest riffs of all time, The Beatles are not usually the first band to come up in conversation. Sure, they have some of the greatest songs in rock history, but not every one of them necessarily translate to the riff-based side of the spectrum. If you want a great riff from them though, sometimes it comes down to some friendly competition.
While Paul McCartney's optimistic song We Can Work It Out was being worked on at the same time, Day Tripper feels like the answer to the rest of the British Invasion bands that came up in the Beatles' wake, showing that the Fabs could rock just as hard as their contemporaries when they wanted to. Although George Harrison does go for it throughout this song, he's actually not the man behind the riff.
No...the writing credit here belongs to John Lennon, who brought the riff to the table only to have Harrison play the main part while he fleshed things out in the background. To anyone who ever thought that John Lennon was the lesser musician in the Beatles, just take a listen to a riff like this one more time. Putting something like this in context only comes from someone who's looking at the bigger picture.