“Little Guitars” by Van Halen

"Little Guitars" is the charmer of Van Halen's 1982 album Diver Down, a band co-write produced by Ted Templeman and engineered by Donn Landee. It opens with Eddie Van Halen's flamenco-flavored acoustic flurry, which sounds like two players but isn't: he trills a single note on the high string with his picking hand while his other hand hammers and pulls the melody out of the low strings. Eddie happily admits he cheated, since he never could finger-pick like a classical player.

The title comes from the guitar he used on the main track, a pint-sized Les Paul copy built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat, heard on no other Van Halen recording. David Lee Roth heard something Mexican in the acoustic part and wrote the words for a señorita. Chuck Klosterman later ranked it the 18th-best Van Halen song.

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