“Lazy” by Deep Purple

"Lazy" is the longest thing on Deep Purple's 1972 album Machine Head, clocking in at over 7 minutes, and it spends a good chunk of that time as a pure jam before Ian Gillan so much as opens his mouth. Jon Lord gets the first word, cranking his Hammond organ into a snarling, overdriven intro, then the riff kicks in and he and Ritchie Blackmore trade solos like two gunslingers who'd rather show off than shoot. When Gillan finally arrives he brings a harmonica along, and he called the whole thing rhythm and blues, which is fair: it swings, with Roger Glover and Ian Paice keeping the groove loose. All five wrote it, and the band produced it themselves with Martin Birch engineering.

A live take landed on Made in Japan the same year, and on stage it often stretched past 10 minutes. Guitar World's readers later voted "Lazy" the 74th greatest guitar solo ever.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.