“Yankee Rose ” by David Lee Roth

Sometimes, musicians are so talented that it almost sounds like their instruments are not just machines, but living, breathing creatures capable of singing, even talking. And sometimes, musicians learn how to use a wah-wah peddle to make their guitars answer the singer's in a musical style known as "Charlie Brown's Parents." This is the case with guitarist Steve Vai's performance in David Lee Roth's "Yankee Rose." Steve had the brilliant idea in this song to use his guitar to make a 'cat call' at a woman. Yes, Diamond Dave says of the titular hot Yankee rose, "She's beautiful!" and the guitar responds by going "weeeeeeet woooooooooo!" and laughing, like "waaaaaaah-wat-wat-wat-wat -wat." Oh my. It sounds like this guitar really thinks this woman is hot.

This sweet intro is followed by two and a half minutes of Mr. Lee Roth bullshitting into the microphone like only he can, giving us some verbal bon mots as "Raise 'em up there, boys, see who salutes," "nothing like her in the whole world, YEAH!" and "here's the national anthem here!" as well as some slick, yet ass-kicking arena rock. And then it comes time for the outro solo. Showing that he is more than just your average frontman, rather than saying "geeeeeeetar!", Diamond Dave says, "Give me some apple pie," to wich Vai responds with the musical equivalent of apple pie, a bunch of high-speed finger-tapped arpeggios. And just like a delicious apple pie stolen cooling on the windowsill only to be snatched away by the neighborhood wisacre, the song is... well, to be honest with you, I don't know why he starts talking about apple pie. Come to think of it, none of David Lee Roth's lyrics make any sense. I think his songwriting technique is to pull a bunch of word's out of the dictionary, string two or three of them together, and then go "waaaaaaaoooooow, yeeeeeeeeeeah ow ow ow ow!" a few times. And that's why we love him.

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