Deep Purple: Was the world’s most famous riff a rip-off?
When a beginner picks up their first guitar, several go-to riffs never fail to enter the vocabulary. Among these are Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’, Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ and The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’, depending on how old you were when you began. Above all others, however, ‘Smoke on the Water’ by Deep Purple seems to take precedence as the most simple yet effective riff.
‘Smoke on the Water’ arrived in 1972 as the fourth and final single of Deep Purple’s masterpiece album, Machine Head. Thanks to its catchy riff and intriguing backstory, it remains the most famous song by the Hertford hard rockers.
As the lyrics detail, the band was initially set to record Machine Head at Montreux Casino in Switzerland, but the venue’s famous fire of 1971 scuppered the plans. “We all came out to Montreux/ On the Lake Geneva shoreline/ To make records with a mobile, yeah/ We didn’t have much time now/ Frank Zappa and the Mothers/ Were at the best place around/ But some stupid with a flare gun/ Burned the place to the ground,” the lyrics read.
Ian Gillan’s lyrics rather succinctly chronicle the events of the disastrous fire. The night before Deep Purple was set to begin recording in The Rolling Stones’ famous Mobile Studio, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention performed a concert in the casino’s theatre. During the performance, a member of the audience fired a flare gun at the rattan-covered ceiling. Although there were fortunately no major injuries, the casino was almost entirely destroyed, along with most of the Mothers’ equipment.
Accompanying Gillan’s informative, lyrical genius was a little more from Ritchie Blackmore, but was it really his own riff? The simple four-note progression was certainly new to the realm of blues rock, but according to a quote from Blackmore in Dave Thompson’s 2004 book Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story, the riff was based on an inversion of Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 5’.
“I owe him a lot of money,” Blackmore said of the late German composer. The riff contains some of the same notes as the reversed classical composition, but the rhythm and order still need significant modification to sound even remotely similar. Hence, I would say Beethoven can continue resting peacefully without riches.
Blackmore isn’t entirely off the hook, though. Have you ever heard ‘Maria Moita’, a song released in 1964 by the Brazillian musician Carlos Lyra? Perhaps it was a coincidence or a subconscious reproduction, but it’s’ hard to argue the compositions don’t’ bear an uncanny resemblance. Hear both below.
