///*****/// [Intro - Guitar Showcase Introduction] (Feedback howl, unaccompanied guitar cadenza, crowd erupting) Ladies and gentlemen, on lead guitar, give it up! [Verse 1] He was nine years old with a catalogue guitar Three broken strings and a picture of a star He played until his fingers wore down to the bone Locked in a bedroom with a transistor for a home No teacher, no lessons, no money, no name Just a mirror and a hairbrush and an unreasonable flame Now the whole world's watching what those fingers can do And every note he plays tonight, he paid for it in blood [Pre-Chorus] Turn him up, turn him loose Let the whole building hear the truth [Chorus] Six strings on fire, burning up the night Every bend a bullet, every note a light He don't need to sing, he don't need a word That guitar's the loudest voice you ever heard Six strings on fire! [Guitar Solo - Extended Showcase] (Free-time cadenza, tapped arpeggios, harmonics, wah conversation) (Band drops out entirely, crowd screaming between phrases) (Slow melodic theme, then double-time shred, then feedback and dive bomb) [Verse 2] Some nights the thing fights back and it won't say a word Some nights it opens up and gives him something never heard He'll chase a single phrase for twenty minutes in a room Till the shape of it comes clean and the whole thing starts to bloom And nobody sees the hours and nobody sees the doubt They only see the moment when the fire comes pouring out So when he stands there shaking with the spotlight in his eyes Understand you're watching twenty years arrive [Pre-Chorus] Turn him up, turn him loose Let the whole building hear the truth [Chorus] Six strings on fire, burning up the night Every bend a bullet, every note a light He don't need to sing, he don't need a word That guitar's the loudest voice you ever heard Six strings on fire! [Breakdown - Call and Response Guitar and Crowd] (He plays a phrase. Twenty thousand people sing it back.) (Higher. They follow.) (Higher still. They follow.) (Impossibly high. The building comes apart.) [Bridge] There's a language older than the words we ever made It lives inside a wooden box and six lines of steel And when a man gives up his whole life just to speak it You don't call it a solo, you call it a prayer [Final Chorus] Six strings on fire, burning up the night Every bend a bullet, every note a light He don't need to sing, he don't need a word That guitar's the loudest voice you ever heard Six strings on fire! Set the whole place alight! [Verse 3] He broke his hand in Rotterdam in nineteen eighty-three Doctor said, that's it for you, you'll never play like that again So he taught himself left-handed in a hotel for a month And he came back playing better than the man he was before [Outro] (Sustained feedback, band crashing back in for one final unison hit) That's my brother right there. That's my brother.
