What is the most annoying guitar riff in the world?
We all remember the scene from 1992’s Wayne’s World. Guitar in hand, Mike Myers’ titular metalhead is about to strum the opening chords to Led Zeppelin’s mythic totem before an in-store assistant quickly interrupts the number and sternly points to the sign behind them that often reads: ”No ‘Stairway to Heaven’”.
Zeppelin’s epic wander through folkloric landscapes and rousing riff attack are by no means annoying, but the movie’s memorable gag points to a fate that can befall many a popular radio monster, the perils of stale overfamiliarity creeping swiftly upon first dominating US FM radio in the mid-1970s.
Even frontman Robert Plant expressed a diffidence with the cut years later, describing the gargantuan rock relic as “a cute and pretty song at a certain point in time” but “not relevant to me anymore”.
A brief perusal across rock sites and sub-Reddits in search of the most testing riff usually leans toward tiresome overplay than outright contempt for the song itself. Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sweet Child o’Mine’ is routinely plumped by metal fans for its never-ending ubiquity, challenged only by The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’, a maddeningly hooky guitar lick that looks destined to score future sports arenas, commercials, and politically revised mass chants for decades to come.
But these aren’t bad songs. Shifting fatigue aside, it’s tempting to hold our nose and wade into two of modern rock’s most embarrassing chapters: hair metal’s 1980s spandex buffoonery and nu-metal’s frosted-tipped, turntable silliness 20 years later. Be it Wingers’ glossy fret shredding raising blood pressures or Trapt’s lunk-headed frat metal inducing maximum cringing wince, it’s all too easy to reach our arm into the depths of merely bad rock songs to unearth the riff that winds up the most.
For such a number, we have to strike straight into the canonical heart of classic rock’s most lauded works, and, at risk of doubling the Far Out inbox with irate emails, pluck out a cover that supposedly shines as one of the band’s most celebrated cuts, and stands tall as a rock behemoth in the music world.
God, ‘Whiskey in the Jar’s annoying, isn’t it? The Thin Lizzy version that it is. Traced back to the 17th century, the old rapparee traditional folk song is draped in historical and cultural weight, a fascinating window into Ireland’s political turbulence around the time of Oliver Cromwell and later William of Orange’s bloody conquests. Such a heritage piece has naturally found a suitable home in the folk tradition, America’s The Highwaymen first popularising the songs for modern audiences in 1962.
Following versions by Peter, Paul and Mary and The Dubliners, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott decided to take a stab. Dropped as their second single, ‘Whiskey in the Jar’s grab at anthemic singalong is punctured by its supremely irritating mosquito guitar lick, a jabbing, grating little riff rash that just never hits any kind of bullseye from the otherwise impeccable Eric Bell. Each time the riff buzzes in, any stirring transport to the Old Country is ripped asunder by that tiny yet jarringly annoying lilting riff.
For whatever reason, the irksome slap of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ can never be shaken off, even by future reimaginings, Metallica’s reverent cover for 1999’s Garage Inc still somehow just bloody irritating. There, we said it.
