The Drum Solo That Helped Make A 17-Minute Song One Of Psychedelic Rock's Defining Masterpieces

Iron Butterfly is one of those weirdly psychedelic '60s bands that boomers are still waiting for younger generations to discover. Originally short-lived (1966 to 1971) and riddled with lineup changes, they're still way more influential than you might realize on metal and its Black Sabbath-centric lineage. Much of this influence boils down to one song: 1968's 17-minute-long "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," with its drum solo that's one of the best in rock history.

From a bird's eye view, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" starts and ends on an insanely hummable hook and riff rooted in the lyrics, "In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey / Don't you know that I'm loving you?" The song is spooky and eerie, wields minor modes and distorted guitars, and is truly worthy of the term "heavy." If you only ever heard the tiny, three-minute-long radio edit version of the song, that's where your knowledge of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" would end, as the radio edit reached No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. But the song's album stayed on the Billboard 200 for a jaw-dropping 140 weeks, which allowed the full, unedited version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" to earworm its way into people's brains.

Shrieking guitar solos, Halloween-sounding organ work, strange sound effects, funky bass ad-libbing: the full version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" has it all. But, it's the song's drum solo that really helped elevate it to masterpiece status. This is the estimable Ron Bushy at work, who, from about six minutes, thirty seconds to nine minutes, guides listeners through the musical underbrush. Tribal and thumping yet deliberate and focused, the solo rips as much as its grooves.

Ron Bushy's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" drum solo is like a hand pulling you through the rougher parts of the Garden of Eden, as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was originally meant to be called. Lowkey rather than bombastic, full of dotted tom strikes (short-long note combinations) and a consistent hi-hat on each beat, Bushy echoes the rest of the song in his solo but veers into improv territory. And like the rest of the song, the solo straddles the line between composed and savage. While "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" wouldn't have gotten anywhere, commercially, without its main riff and vocal line, it's the song's percussion (and Doug Ingle's organ playing) that made it a one-hit wonder that still keeps us hooked today.

We don't know what inspired Bushy's solo, but we do know that none other than the Beatles' Ringo Starr admitted to borrowing from it (per It's Psychedelic Baby Mag). Starr might have done this for his drum solo on "The End," his only solo with the Beatles and one that still gives us chills today, as there are similarities between the two. But, Starr never called out "The End," so we can only guess. 

Bushy reprised his "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" solo in his late life during a 2012 Iron Butterfly reunion performance. And by "reprised," we mean he did a completely different solo that blows the original out of the water. It's about four minutes long, features a much more complex interplay between kick and toms, and slips through several different distinct sets of grooves. This is the final form of a solo that had already made "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" a masterpiece but had time to mature into something fitting the band's impact.