The other day, I was flipping through some old disks, and found a song that I haven’t listened to in a long while: Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida”. This is such a classic song, and in so many ways. It’s got a good riff that even in repetition, doesn’t go stale. It’s a love song “oh won’t you come with me – and take my hand – oh won’t you come with me – and walk this land – oh please, take my hand”. It’s got a long instrumental part in the middle, with a long drum solo, followed by a keyboard ham, and some guitar licks tossed in the end that sound like a creature of some sort bellowing.It’s seventeen minutes of pure musical enjoyment.

It’s hard to believe that the bandmembers were only 17-21 years old when they recorded it. An anthem, a song for the ages, and they did it as a very young age.