Is Jane’s Addiction song ‘Three Days’ the most overlooked guitar performance of all time?
Prominent guitar performances like those in ‘All Along the Watchtower’, ‘Stairway to Heaven’, and Slash’s signature riffs on ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ are known even to those who aren’t necessarily rock or music lovers. However, because these classics have dominated the mainstream with their catchy appeal to people from all walks of life, other truly accomplished and more artful fretboard moments often go unnoticed. A clear example of this is the intricate guitar work found on Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Three Days’.
Most rock guitarists know the name Dave Navarro, often due to his work with the influential Californian alt-metal band Jane’s Addiction or his ill-fated stint with Red Hot Chili Peppers, which produced the album ‘One Hot Minute’. Despite what many ‘fans’ regurgitating popular opinion might say, ‘One Hot Minute’ is actually one of their best. Outside the realm of guitar aficionados, Navarro is perhaps most famous for being the tattooed and pierced stud who was briefly married to Carmen Electra.
Let’s be clear, though: Navarro is a pioneering six-string virtuoso. Fusing rock swagger and searing metal technique with a distinctly gothic, almost post-punk atmosphere, he became one of the most venerable guitarists of the 1980s and early 1990s. His dynamism and unique approach blended sounds that many had previously considered antithetical. Able to evoke both a heady psychedelic daze and an ominous sense of dread within the same track, his profoundly expressionist style, which leaves no stone unturned, has produced numerous classic moments.
Navarro was always the ultimate postmodern player in many ways, given his dedication to not being boxed in by specific sounds. This is typified by the range encompassed by his highlights reel, from the energetic funk of ‘Been Caught Stealing’ – one of Jane’s Addiction’s best-loved tracks – to that of the chugging, muscular nature of the ‘Mountain Song’. Despite being completely different, these two cuts fit seamlessly within the band’s oeuvre and Navarro’s back catalogue.
The track that defines the elemental force of Navarro’s playing most clearly is the sprawling epic ‘Three Days’ from Jane’s Addiction’s 1990 masterpiece, Ritual de lo Habitual. It’s a three-part song of nearly 11 minutes that meditates on the cycle of life and death. It was inspired by Xiola Blue, the late friend of vocalist Perry Farrell, who spent three days with him and his partner Casey Niccoli in a haze of sex and narcotics before later tragically dying at just 18 from a heroin overdose. It was penned before her death.
A truly narcotic listening experience, augmented by the surreal, poetic lyrics tinged by intrigue, the music brings the words to life with its constantly shifting nature and the intoxicating metallic spin on psychedelia. All four band members are exceptional in the song, with bassist Eric Avery and drummer Stephen Perkins ballasting the entire complex structure, but Navarro leads the charge. Whether it is the dark picking pattern that opens the track, the rich strums that keep it moving with its fluid, shimmering chorus effect, or the full-bodied metallic chugs that pierce the mix later on, throughout ‘Three Days’, Navarro provides an absolute masterclass in guitar playing, and thinking outside of the box.
Not only does he exhibit almost every trick in the guitarist’s arsenal, but his powerful solos, which are perfectly executed and precisely the right length, provide iridescent bursts of energy that counterbalance the darkness and somehow echo the climaxes of the sexual abandon that Farrell discusses. It’s virtuosic but artful, a line few have straddled so successfully. It might be a cult classic for rock and metal lovers, but ‘Three Days’ is one of the most criminally overlooked guitar performances ever. Dave Navarro is a genius.
