If you do a web search and your terms are “rock songs no guitar,” what you’re going to get is confused. On question-and-answer sites, you’ll find helpful readers chiming in with acoustic guitar songs like Guns N' Roses’ “Patience.” And you’ll find lists including slow piano ballads with nary a bit of rock 'n' roll in them, or Billy Joel tunes in which piano takes center stage, but a Les Paul through a Marshall is clearly audible in the mix.
Are acoustic guitars not guitars? Is John Legend a rock pianist? Other folks will insist that there can’t be a rock song without guitar, since guitar is the signature instrument in rock. We disagree.
While rare, there are a few great songs that feature a driving beat and a rock song structure with no guitar at all. These artists aren't cranks or radicals who are leaving the guitar out to make a point – they’re just artists who wrote material that didn’t need any six-string. These are the tracks that will make you say, “He’s right, that song doesn’t have a guitar track. I never noticed that before.”
Morphine based their short-lived career around guitarless rock songs, spiking the mixture with a shot of jazz and blues. This influence came courtesy of Dana Colley’s moaning saxophone and the soulful hangover of Mark Sandman's vocals. Add Jerome Deupree’s steady and aware drumming, and we challenge you to find a place for guitar in the mix. Sadly, Sandman died of a heart attack in 1999, cutting the band’s career short.
Supertramp is a funny band. They're one of those classic-rock acts that has a number of diverse hits that most fans don’t know are the same band. It’s hard to pin them down to a signature sound beyond the instantly recognizable tones of Roger Hodgson’s plaintive singing.
Many listeners probably aren't aware that they’re from the UK and would have a hard time picking the members out of a police lineup. But the songs! In typical iconoclastic fashion, this band picked guitars up and put them down when the mood suited them, recording this keyboard-driven classic with none at all.
Keane is a poignant, heartfelt band based on vocals, drums, and a keyboard that also provides the bass – sort of like Coldplay if Jonny Buckland and Guy Berryman took a smoke break. When they get their songwriting right, they really get it right. This big, stomping piano song proves that a powerful, epic track can be written without a big Strat solo or gritty power chords.
No, Ben Folds Five didn’t lose a couple of guitarists and turn into a power trio. Folds just thought their name sounded “better than Ben Folds Three.” In any case, with the trio’s liberal use of the bass distortion pedal, Folds' huge '70s-style horn charts, and the sixteenth-note pulse of that piano, who needs guitar? As usual with Folds, the lyrics on this one are a blast.
Over the course of Bjork’s career, she’s strayed further and further from traditional instruments and deeper into the realm of electronica. In a good deal of her work, it can be difficult to distinguish what you’re hearing. On this one, for example, the guitarish power chords toward the end are played on keys. But the lack of live guitar doesn't make this track any less unstoppable.
Now you've got your earworm for the rest of the day. You're welcome.
Jesse Sterling Harrison is an author, recording artist, and part-time farmer. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, three daughters, and a herd of ducks.
