Posted by Nick on Friday, February 27th, 2026,
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Impressive sticks by Chad, to be sure. Sina Doering did a pretty decent job on “Burn” a few years ago, but no one touches what Paicey put down on that original Burn album title track in 1974. Or what Ritchie did.
You are not wrong there Thorsun and how many bands have two killer album opening songs throughout their career. Not too many I would think. Highway Star and Burn. Blackmore, Lord and Paice. Cheers.
I would also say that Burn bears the crown for Purple’s most unconventional, yet potent and catchy hard-rocking song. There is nothing wrong with the more accessible SOTW or Highway Star at all, but the dynamics of Burn, the soaring chorus vocals, the bridge and Ritchie’s and Jon’s neoclassical solos are hard to beat (on Burn, Jon’s solo beats even Ritchie’s, on HS it’s the other way around).
Name me one other song where the verse is essentially sung over a constant drum solo?! And while it’s a fast song, its arrangement is airy and nuanced, it doesn’t just pound along like, say, Kill The King does.
Burn is kinda Deep Purple’s Black Dog. SOTW might be their Whole Lotta Love, but Black Dog and Burn respectively typify LZ and DP especially well.
Kill the King is more ‘comparable’ to the song Fireball Uwe, tempo wise. Burn the song, is a little slower than both of those shorter and much more to the point songs. Otherwise yes indeed, I agree with your assessment of the song Burn. It has everything in it. Cheers.
Yes, Kill the King is even faster and indeed more like the Fireball. But even Fireball had a certain elegance and lightness (Jon‘s keyboard solo and the way the tambourine changes time towards the end) the Rainbow track lacks.
Kill the King‘s intent was of course to bludgeon the senses – I was never too happy about the heavy metal content in Rainbow‘s music. Not that I dislike heavy metal, even when it’s played very fast (as long as not all of it is that fast, speed metal eludes me as a sub-genre)
but I thought Ritchie’s strengths lay elsewhere. He’s not boneheaded enough to be a true metal guitarist. I prefer him playing more intricate parts like on Gates of Babylon.
Agree. Ritchie really made the most of Gershwin’s tune.
And if I had to pick just one DP track….this might be the one. And how I loved to witness Ian Paice play it just a week ago! Followed by Might just take your Life. Pure bliss in Bensheim. Things you don’t expect.
You were in Bensheim, we should have met! I didn’t go because I had seen him in Rűsselsheim, but I had played with the idea of going to Bensheim instead, it’s a nice venue with a great sound (Rüsselsheim is only half the size at best and therefore more intimate).
Ritchie tired of KTK pretty fast. He’s never played it since 1976, said he didn’t like it in the BBC guitar great radio program circa 1980 and I’m sure Dougie said he wanted to do it but Ritchie said no.
Fireball isn’t really a six string electric guitar track either. Just bass guitar would have been suffice, wonderful in all its distortion and as a solo instrument too. Ian Paice’s double kick foray which is most probably what started the idea, maybe not, who knows. A little bit of organ and of course the leather lunged screamers vocal. It is a classic example of no electric lead guitar solo is required and that is a good thing. We could almost imagine Ritchie playing the riff on one string, bored to tears and doing as little as possible. Kill the King and Ritchie is a different animal by that time, the intent there was to bludgeon as we know and to include a guitar solo also and the fact it was out there well before the studio album version says something. Both tracks are designed and placed where they are on the respective albums for a reason. Kill the King as a concert opener, what a way to commence the onslaught at a Rainbow gig at that time. Fireball the song a precursor to speed metal perhaps, well an influence at least to that style of rock music and heavy metal. Cheers.
KTK isn’t awful, just kind of mediocre. I don’t mind rabble-rousing anthems, I do like LLRnR for instance (but it needs to be sung by Dio) for its interesting and varied chord changes though the chorus is probably even too simplistic dumb for KISS. (But that is what Ritchie demanded from Ronnie, he wanted a singalong song with an adolescent message.)
Of course, Spotlight Kid, the opener in the Turner era, was KTK 2.0 – never thought that’s song too brilliant either, if push comes to shove I even prefer KTK.
I did like Eyes of the World as a very atmospheric opener in the Bonnet era (never mind that Roger‘s backing vocals were off key in every live version I‘ve heard 😂) but they only played it then.
Does anybody know what Rainbow‘s opener was before they added KTK to the set? Or was it there right from the start?
There are not really that many Rainbow songs I deem excellent:
MOTSM
Catch the Rainbow
Temple of the King
Tarot Woman
Lady of the Lake
Gates of Babylon
Rainbow Eyes
Eyes of the World
Makin’ Love
SYBG
I Surrender
Stone Cold
Stranded
Desperate Heart
Snowman
The above mirrors that I consider the debut, LLRnR, DTE and BOOS the better half of Rainbow‘s output. Much of the Turner era left me cold, it was neither real skillful AOR/melodic rock
Ritchie didn’t just get tired of Kill the King, he got tired of all the majestic production he did with Ronnie & Cozy, when he wanted to start trying to climb the American hit list.
for me Kill the King remains a masterpiece and a fundamental step towards the beginning of neoclassical speed metal.
I honestly consider Kill the King better than any Judas Priest song that can be traced back to the boring “ghe-ghe-ghe-ghe-ghe” + macho man style.
Spotlight Kid is a great piece of Speed+AoR, a real clever move by Ritchie to combine FM music with Rainbow’s past.
At least Cozy is on a few tracks there Uwe. A bit of a hit below the belt with two cover songs listed though, ouch! And what happened to that ‘tower of stone’ being built skywards, he he he? Not to worry, there are probably more songs there than I would have thought possible, considering you are not into Rainbow as such. Good to see Eyes of The World on there, the only really epic song on that DTE album. The only JLT era I agree with there is Snowman, another instrumental cover of sorts that JLT had nothing to do with. The second JLT album, SBTE initially I refused to buy. Far too AOR glitzy for my young ears even back then. I only really purchased it a few years later because of the Eyes of Fire and Death Alley Driver songs. Even Bent Out of Shape has a few cringy AOR songs on it too. Luckily the two instrumentals and Fire Dance are on it. As ‘cliched’ as Death Alley Driver sounds, I still like it as a ‘driving ‘song, so to speak. The Difficult to Cure album is miles ahead of anything else Rainbow did with JLT and even with DP with S&M. Of note there on the DTC album is a lack of JLT co-songwriting, that says a lot to my ears. Less ‘glitzy’ AOR blandness on DTC. I would have a couple of original Doogie era songs on a list. At least that Rainbow album kicked some butt and the sound of it is superb. A wonderful recording sound wise and not to mention the Edvard Grieg cover and the sublime version of the Yardbirds classic, Still I’m Sad. Each to their own as we often say and those poor old horses trundling around that same old course. Cheers.
#17: I think you are underestimating Ritchie’s influence. Spotlight Kid created a template of sorts for what Yngwie would contribute to Alcatrazz. I think Ritchie was the first one to write tracks like that complete with an eastern European sounding solo section. Something that was bound to sound awkward but instead just sounded perfect. Ritchie’s genius in a nutshell. Mediocre it’s definitely not.
I left Stargazer out because to me it is a very good initial idea left underdeveloped – likely due to the rushed circumstances of its recording and release. It sounds unfinished to me and could have used a few more arrangement rounds and also some harmonic embellishments. Not a bad first idea but to me not the Rainbow classic it has gone down as in Ritchie lore since then. Maybe it would have been played live more often had they worked on it more in the studio. The immediacy that worked on A Light In The Black, backfired on Stargazer which would have needed more time and care.
The lyrics are what they are, sigh! 😑 If comic book Tower of Babel mythology coupled with really bad aviation know-know is your thing, I guess the rhyming and choice of words are ok. 🤗 Joe Lynn Turner’s lyrics were even worse and let’s not even talk about All Night Long, Roger. 😑
But even as a 15-year-old I preferred deep meaning lyrics like this …
@9 (on Burn, Jon’s solo beats even Ritchie’s, on HS it’s the other way around).
I would call the HS case a tie. But I agree about Burn.
Another point is that (for me) the keyboard solo on Burn is a case for which I do not find a very good live performance. I mean one that I would say “yes! this is equally, if not more, satisfying than the studio one”. On HS there are many of such performances by Jon, in Burn there is always something missing. I think in the studio there is a different organ sound on the “Bach like” part and it works sooo good, and this is difficult to replicate live. Maybe if we got it in the Morse years, by a more mature Jon… Yet the even more mature big Ian would not allow that 😛
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride6.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/glover2.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
But can he do it left-handed?
Just joking, Will Ferrell is really quite good, he should by all rights be playing in a proper band.
PS: And I am relieved he didn’t wear just his sock, it might have gotten caught in the busy bass drum and pulled off!
PPS: Lest we forget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uBOtQOO70Y
PPS: It’s nice to see Burn getting even after half a century all the recognition as a drumming extravaganza it deserves.
February 28th, 2026 at 00:34Impressive sticks by Chad, to be sure. Sina Doering did a pretty decent job on “Burn” a few years ago, but no one touches what Paicey put down on that original Burn album title track in 1974. Or what Ritchie did.
February 28th, 2026 at 04:11https://youtu.be/DSEPEw3rr4E?si=KN-Kepoj3yjqSJRO
Discovered few time ago
February 28th, 2026 at 14:53The greatest Deep Purple track ever, for me. Period. Never get tired of it, after zillions of listens. And it will go on all my life and a day more.
Chad doing a formidable take on this. Thanks.
February 28th, 2026 at 19:24To me Burn is still the song that has the best guitar riff in Purple, more than the too-overplayed Smoke in the Water
And the drums, Paice was like saying to himself I can’t let myself behind Blackmore and Lord’s magnificent performance in this song.
March 1st, 2026 at 01:08You are not wrong there Thorsun and how many bands have two killer album opening songs throughout their career. Not too many I would think. Highway Star and Burn. Blackmore, Lord and Paice. Cheers.
March 1st, 2026 at 01:14@6 Mac, I’d add Speed King and Fireball to that list. Both killers..
March 1st, 2026 at 16:47@ 6
Or three killer opening songs (Speed King), or four (Stormbringer), or five (Perfect Strangers), or … fill in yourself !
March 1st, 2026 at 17:53I would also say that Burn bears the crown for Purple’s most unconventional, yet potent and catchy hard-rocking song. There is nothing wrong with the more accessible SOTW or Highway Star at all, but the dynamics of Burn, the soaring chorus vocals, the bridge and Ritchie’s and Jon’s neoclassical solos are hard to beat (on Burn, Jon’s solo beats even Ritchie’s, on HS it’s the other way around).
Name me one other song where the verse is essentially sung over a constant drum solo?! And while it’s a fast song, its arrangement is airy and nuanced, it doesn’t just pound along like, say, Kill The King does.
Burn is kinda Deep Purple’s Black Dog. SOTW might be their Whole Lotta Love, but Black Dog and Burn respectively typify LZ and DP especially well.
March 1st, 2026 at 18:36Kill the King is more ‘comparable’ to the song Fireball Uwe, tempo wise. Burn the song, is a little slower than both of those shorter and much more to the point songs. Otherwise yes indeed, I agree with your assessment of the song Burn. It has everything in it. Cheers.
March 1st, 2026 at 22:07Yes, Kill the King is even faster and indeed more like the Fireball. But even Fireball had a certain elegance and lightness (Jon‘s keyboard solo and the way the tambourine changes time towards the end) the Rainbow track lacks.
Kill the King‘s intent was of course to bludgeon the senses – I was never too happy about the heavy metal content in Rainbow‘s music. Not that I dislike heavy metal, even when it’s played very fast (as long as not all of it is that fast, speed metal eludes me as a sub-genre)
https://youtu.be/966_Xe4RzDw
but I thought Ritchie’s strengths lay elsewhere. He’s not boneheaded enough to be a true metal guitarist. I prefer him playing more intricate parts like on Gates of Babylon.
March 2nd, 2026 at 00:08Agree. Ritchie really made the most of Gershwin’s tune.
And if I had to pick just one DP track….this might be the one. And how I loved to witness Ian Paice play it just a week ago! Followed by Might just take your Life. Pure bliss in Bensheim. Things you don’t expect.
March 2nd, 2026 at 11:31Great job by Will Ferrel – I mean Chad Smith on drums!). It’s amazing how close those 2 resemble one another!
March 2nd, 2026 at 13:42You were in Bensheim, we should have met! I didn’t go because I had seen him in Rűsselsheim, but I had played with the idea of going to Bensheim instead, it’s a nice venue with a great sound (Rüsselsheim is only half the size at best and therefore more intimate).
March 2nd, 2026 at 15:07Ritchie tired of KTK pretty fast. He’s never played it since 1976, said he didn’t like it in the BBC guitar great radio program circa 1980 and I’m sure Dougie said he wanted to do it but Ritchie said no.
March 2nd, 2026 at 16:46Fireball isn’t really a six string electric guitar track either. Just bass guitar would have been suffice, wonderful in all its distortion and as a solo instrument too. Ian Paice’s double kick foray which is most probably what started the idea, maybe not, who knows. A little bit of organ and of course the leather lunged screamers vocal. It is a classic example of no electric lead guitar solo is required and that is a good thing. We could almost imagine Ritchie playing the riff on one string, bored to tears and doing as little as possible. Kill the King and Ritchie is a different animal by that time, the intent there was to bludgeon as we know and to include a guitar solo also and the fact it was out there well before the studio album version says something. Both tracks are designed and placed where they are on the respective albums for a reason. Kill the King as a concert opener, what a way to commence the onslaught at a Rainbow gig at that time. Fireball the song a precursor to speed metal perhaps, well an influence at least to that style of rock music and heavy metal. Cheers.
March 2nd, 2026 at 17:03KTK isn’t awful, just kind of mediocre. I don’t mind rabble-rousing anthems, I do like LLRnR for instance (but it needs to be sung by Dio) for its interesting and varied chord changes though the chorus is probably even too simplistic dumb for KISS. (But that is what Ritchie demanded from Ronnie, he wanted a singalong song with an adolescent message.)
Of course, Spotlight Kid, the opener in the Turner era, was KTK 2.0 – never thought that’s song too brilliant either, if push comes to shove I even prefer KTK.
I did like Eyes of the World as a very atmospheric opener in the Bonnet era (never mind that Roger‘s backing vocals were off key in every live version I‘ve heard 😂) but they only played it then.
Does anybody know what Rainbow‘s opener was before they added KTK to the set? Or was it there right from the start?
There are not really that many Rainbow songs I deem excellent:
MOTSM
Catch the Rainbow
Temple of the King
Tarot Woman
Lady of the Lake
Gates of Babylon
Rainbow Eyes
Eyes of the World
Makin’ Love
SYBG
I Surrender
Stone Cold
Stranded
Desperate Heart
Snowman
The above mirrors that I consider the debut, LLRnR, DTE and BOOS the better half of Rainbow‘s output. Much of the Turner era left me cold, it was neither real skillful AOR/melodic rock
https://youtu.be/Y-4hp5HZ2aU
nor gripping mind-melting riff heavy metal to me.
https://youtu.be/LKuuHfMx3CQ
March 2nd, 2026 at 18:27#15 David:
Ritchie didn’t just get tired of Kill the King, he got tired of all the majestic production he did with Ronnie & Cozy, when he wanted to start trying to climb the American hit list.
for me Kill the King remains a masterpiece and a fundamental step towards the beginning of neoclassical speed metal.
I honestly consider Kill the King better than any Judas Priest song that can be traced back to the boring “ghe-ghe-ghe-ghe-ghe” + macho man style.
Spotlight Kid is a great piece of Speed+AoR, a real clever move by Ritchie to combine FM music with Rainbow’s past.
March 2nd, 2026 at 22:28At least Cozy is on a few tracks there Uwe. A bit of a hit below the belt with two cover songs listed though, ouch! And what happened to that ‘tower of stone’ being built skywards, he he he? Not to worry, there are probably more songs there than I would have thought possible, considering you are not into Rainbow as such. Good to see Eyes of The World on there, the only really epic song on that DTE album. The only JLT era I agree with there is Snowman, another instrumental cover of sorts that JLT had nothing to do with. The second JLT album, SBTE initially I refused to buy. Far too AOR glitzy for my young ears even back then. I only really purchased it a few years later because of the Eyes of Fire and Death Alley Driver songs. Even Bent Out of Shape has a few cringy AOR songs on it too. Luckily the two instrumentals and Fire Dance are on it. As ‘cliched’ as Death Alley Driver sounds, I still like it as a ‘driving ‘song, so to speak. The Difficult to Cure album is miles ahead of anything else Rainbow did with JLT and even with DP with S&M. Of note there on the DTC album is a lack of JLT co-songwriting, that says a lot to my ears. Less ‘glitzy’ AOR blandness on DTC. I would have a couple of original Doogie era songs on a list. At least that Rainbow album kicked some butt and the sound of it is superb. A wonderful recording sound wise and not to mention the Edvard Grieg cover and the sublime version of the Yardbirds classic, Still I’m Sad. Each to their own as we often say and those poor old horses trundling around that same old course. Cheers.
March 2nd, 2026 at 22:43#17: I think you are underestimating Ritchie’s influence. Spotlight Kid created a template of sorts for what Yngwie would contribute to Alcatrazz. I think Ritchie was the first one to write tracks like that complete with an eastern European sounding solo section. Something that was bound to sound awkward but instead just sounded perfect. Ritchie’s genius in a nutshell. Mediocre it’s definitely not.
March 3rd, 2026 at 07:03I always wondered whether Ritchie had Rory Gallaghers Moonchild in mind writing that Spotlight Kid riff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DVbP8pun0I
March 3rd, 2026 at 11:59#21: I wouldn’t have thought of Spotlight Kid hadn’t you mentioned it 🙂 A very vague similarity, I must say.
March 3rd, 2026 at 13:58Now that you mention it Tilly – you’re right!
I left Stargazer out because to me it is a very good initial idea left underdeveloped – likely due to the rushed circumstances of its recording and release. It sounds unfinished to me and could have used a few more arrangement rounds and also some harmonic embellishments. Not a bad first idea but to me not the Rainbow classic it has gone down as in Ritchie lore since then. Maybe it would have been played live more often had they worked on it more in the studio. The immediacy that worked on A Light In The Black, backfired on Stargazer which would have needed more time and care.
March 3rd, 2026 at 15:13And here I was thinking that it was the lyrics to Stargazer that was the obstacle…………..
March 3rd, 2026 at 20:50The lyrics are what they are, sigh! 😑 If comic book Tower of Babel mythology coupled with really bad aviation know-know is your thing, I guess the rhyming and choice of words are ok. 🤗 Joe Lynn Turner’s lyrics were even worse and let’s not even talk about All Night Long, Roger. 😑
But even as a 15-year-old I preferred deep meaning lyrics like this …
https://youtu.be/Cbw4_X1IJvs
Shel Silverstein who also wrote A Boy Named Sue for Johnny Cash was such a brilliant and witty lyricist.
And no other band could be a as lovably shit-stoned out of their minds with pot, yet still deliver live as Dr Hook. 😂
https://youtu.be/vFAMyoGS4jY
March 4th, 2026 at 16:13@9 (on Burn, Jon’s solo beats even Ritchie’s, on HS it’s the other way around).
I would call the HS case a tie. But I agree about Burn.
Another point is that (for me) the keyboard solo on Burn is a case for which I do not find a very good live performance. I mean one that I would say “yes! this is equally, if not more, satisfying than the studio one”. On HS there are many of such performances by Jon, in Burn there is always something missing. I think in the studio there is a different organ sound on the “Bach like” part and it works sooo good, and this is difficult to replicate live. Maybe if we got it in the Morse years, by a more mature Jon… Yet the even more mature big Ian would not allow that 😛
March 24th, 2026 at 08:28