The 1969 guitar solo Eddie Van Halen called his favourite ever: “It just fits the song”
Some of the greatest elements of Eddie Van Halen are so ingrained into his playing that it’s easy to miss them.
Although most people just know him as the guy who invented tapping licks and paved the way for what shred guitar was going to be for the next few years, Eddie never lost the sense of taste when it came time to write a solo, usually playing exactly what was needed instead of a half-hearted scale exercise.
That restraint is often what separates great guitarists from merely technical ones. While speed and complexity can impress in isolation, the ability to serve the song requires a deeper musical instinct, one that prioritises feel, space, and intention over sheer volume of notes. Eddie’s playing, for all its flash, was rooted in that understanding.
It’s also a reminder that innovation doesn’t always come from adding more, but sometimes from stripping things back. In a landscape where many players were racing to outdo each other, the idea of doing less could be just as radical. That philosophy would end up connecting seemingly opposite players like Van Halen and Neil Young, even if their styles sounded worlds apart.
That kind of mindset comes from a man who appreciates subtlety, and Eddie was more than happy to praise Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl’ when discussing his favourite solos.
Then again, Neil Young and Eddie Van Halen seem worlds apart on the guitar player spectrum. They both have their bags of tricks and throw down a great guitar moment whenever the time called for it, but if Eddie was all about precision when he played, Young may as well have been addicted to chaos.
Regardless of his actual ability, half of Young’s solos sound like he’s trying to strangle his guitar half the time. Even though many guitar aficionados have tried to tab out what Young played during the solo in ‘Rockin’ In the Free World’, it’s impossible to get the articulation down the way he does, especially when he sounds like he’s on the verge of exploding.
Whereas that version of Young is at least trying to get something out of a solo, ‘Cinnamon Girl’ feels like the anti-guitar solo. Despite how much technical prowess Young has on the guitar, the entire solo consists of just one note being played a bunch of times before going back to the meat of the song.
Eddie could have easily played a million notes in that stretch of time, but he thought that Young did exactly what he needed to do, telling Guitarist, “One of my favourite solos is ‘Cinnamon Girl’ by Neil Young. It’s a one-note solo and it just fits the song. Anyone else would have gone ‘WORAAAGH’ and it wouldn’t have made sense”.
If you look at the very beginning of Van Halen, Eddie even had one song that seemed to take Young’s mentality to heart. While ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love’ was known for being one of the band’s first great riffs, Eddie’s solo is one of the most simplistic melodies that he ever played, only playing on one string for most of the solo and only putting a little bit of flash on it at the very end.
As Eddie evolved as a guitar player, he also seemed to pay attention more to the song when composing his guitar breaks. His guitar playing usually worked incredibly well in almost any situation, but when working on some of the later Sammy Hagar-era albums, his delicate touch on the guitar was also more in line with how Young approached his craft, learning to play the song instead of playing his guitar.
If anything, Young and Eddie do have one thing in common when it comes to their approaches to the guitar. Their skill levels are far different from those of any other guitar player, but even if you’ve been playing guitar for years and have mastered every scale that has come your way, you cannot play with the same mojo that either of them had.
