"My Sharona" by The Knack

Lead guitarist Berton Averre’s full-length My Sharona solo doesn’t cut through the mix. It transcends. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that it was cut for time on the radio release.

The Knack’s 1979 breakout hit is remembered for spending 6 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 due to a pounding snare, funky bass, and sleazy power-pop strut. But wrapped up in that stuttering surf-stomp ear-worm and buried under the pop-chart history is one of rock’s most criminally underrated guitar solos. The full album cut features Averre absolutely burning a hole in the track for a minute and a half.

He’s been teasing with quick jabs and sly fills for the first half, but at 2:40, he comes off the chain. What follows is a solo in movements, mutating from taut, staccato bursts to full-on molten runs, bending and clawing its way to a place somewhere entirely different than where it began. It’s masterful, inventive, and still stupid fun forty years on.

Yes, the song’s lyrical backstory is as skeezy as its chorus suggests. But if you want pure rock joy through a good stereo, this is it. The bass is fuzzy and propulsive, the drums snap, and that solo slices and dices my senses just so.

Listen for: At 3:10, Averre drops into a tight, syncopated rhythm that feels like he’s throwing elbows before sprinting to the finish.

Data

Song: My Sharona
Album: Get The Knack
Artist: The Knack
Genre: Rock, Power-Pop
Year: 1979
Length: 4:55
Composer: Berton Averre, Douglas Lars Fieger
Producer: Mike Chapman