Oh man, is that ever a hard call, what's the best rock song of all time. For me, the answer breaks into subgenres: in protometal, Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," in arena 1970s bands, Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water"(the live version from Made In Japan, which is worth about any sum you pay to get it) -- both of these showcase the iron magnificence of the electric guitar. Now when you get into quality of lyric-writing combined with straight-ahead rock, give me Warren Zevon, rest his soul, any day. His big FM hit was the comically cartoony "Werewolves of London," but you saw his depth in something like "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" or "Ourselves To Know."

We all love our acoustic instruments, but something has much struck me: there are a lot of pipe tunes that would sound well, wrung through a lead guitar. The pipes and the electric guitar both have a harsh tonality that we sons of the twentieth century can appreciate. Occasionally, the flow can go the other way: Manfred Mann's "Doo Wah Diddy" and Warren Zevon's "Mr. Bad Example" both fit on the bagpipes. Heck, "Dueling Banjoes" can be played on the bagpipes, and a formidable exercise in G/D/E gracenotes, doublings, throws, birls, taorluaths, lemluaths et cetera even unto pibroch fingerings it can be, too.