When the “Beat It” guitar solo was being recorded, Eddie Van Halen made a bold call. He decided the middle of Michael Jackson’s song didn’t quite work the way it was.
So he fixed it. Without checking with anyone first.
Eddie rearranged the section so his solo played over a different part of the song, with its own chord change, instead of sitting where it had been planned. He laid down just two takes. Then he had to sit back and wait, because his changes had thrown off the timing on the tape. Two other musicians, Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro, had to go back and re-cut the basic track so everything lined up around Michael’s vocal and that new solo.
It was a lot of work. And Eddie had done it all to a song that wasn’t his, before the star had heard a note of it.
Eddie Van Halen tells it himself, years later
Watch him remember that day. There’s a warmth in how he talks about Michael that tells you a lot before he even gets to the ending.
Now imagine the moment. Michael walks into the studio. Eddie turns to him and gets ahead of it, saying, “Look, I changed the middle section of your song.”
A rock star had rewritten part of a Michael Jackson track. Anybody would brace for that conversation.
Hear the band talk about the night this all came together
Steve Lukather, one of the men who had to re-record the whole thing, tells the behind-the-scenes version with a grin. These were pros making it up as they went, and loving every minute.
So how did Michael take it?
He loved it. Eddie later said Michael told him, “Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo, but to actually care about the song, and make it better.”
That’s the whole thing right there. Eddie didn’t just play fast. He cared enough to change what he thought was wrong, and Michael respected him for it.
The finished song, with that famous solo in the middle
Play it one more time and really listen to the guitar break. That’s a rock legend who reshaped the song on the spot, and a pop legend who thanked him for the nerve.
Two giants, one track, and a risk that paid off.