In all likelihood you’ve heard this song, a genuine Classic Rock classic, hundreds of times. And thus, you’ve also listened to its mid-tune guitar solo on countless occasions too. But, have you? I mean, have you ever stopped what you were doing, really focused in, and heard it, like, note for note?

‘Do It Again’ was a hit single off Steely Dan’s 1972 debut album “Can’t Buy A Thrill,” and would become the tastemaking band’s second-highest charting song ever.¹ The solo in question, performed by one of The Dan’s forgotten founding members, Denny Dias, had quite a distinctive sound, the result of Dias utilizing an electric sitar, technically not a guitar at all. And, partly as a result of that particular instrument choice, it was also characterized by very idiosyncratic, choppy rhythmic patterns quite unusual to anything typically found in popular rock music.

That sound. And those patterns. They’re, well,…still pretty tough to describe. But if you were to dedicate just 58 seconds of your life to hear the unique passage again, to really try to grasp its amazing, underappreciated essence, you might just come away with something like this:

Probably weren’t expect that, were you? The dexterous demonstration above – of what, really more like scat guitar than air guitar, right? – is done by a young man named Andy Arthur Smith, a musical content creator bestowed upon me some time ago by the magic of the social media algorithm, and a hero to untold legions of frustrated air musicians such as myself. (Not all of his bits are winners, but I’m confident a perusal of his accumulated posts would be overwhelmingly amusing).  https://www.instagram.com/andyarthursmith/

As for what you now (I hope) may more suitably perceive as the dazzling Dias solo amidst this prototypical Steely Dan tune, its origin is also a bit remarkable. The swirling sequence was played on a rusty-stringed Coral sitar, borrowed impromptu from a producer in an unrelated, nearby studio, after having just been purchased at a pawn shop across the street for $50 earlier that day. Dias had never seen it prior to the Steely Dan recording session, and would never play it another time. “I only had that Coral for a few hours,” Dias recalled, “on the day we recorded that solo.” One and done, oddly enough, for a song called ‘Do It Again.’

And speaking of which, all you faux-instrumentalists out there (again, like me): best of luck trying to duplicate Smith’s demonstrative yet still brilliantly mellifluous sitar/guitar impersonation. I don’t expect to see anybody do that again.

¹1974’s ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ went to #4, the only one to chart higher.