Released July 1990 Length 6:02 Writer(s) Steve Vai | Recorded 1989
1990 Label Relativity
Epic | |
Genre Instrumental rock, heavy metal | ||
"For the Love of God" is an instrumental guitar piece by Steve Vai. It is the seventh song on Vai's 1990 album Passion and Warfare. The track was voted #29 in a readers' poll of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time for the magazine Guitar World. The piece, which runs for just over six minutes, features a number of techniques, including whammy bar tricks, harmonics, fast legato runs and sweep-picking. Vai recorded it on the fourth day of a 10-day fast because "I do try to push myself into relatively altered states of consciousness. Because in those states you can come up with things that are unique even for yourself".
Vai has performed an arrangement of this piece with The Metropole Orchestra in the Netherlands, a nine-minute version of this arrangement by Chris Opperman can be found on his Sound Theories album.
The first live performance of this song was in Seville, Spain, during the "Leyendas de la Guitarra" (Guitar Legends) festival in 1991.
David Coverdale makes a guest appearance in this song, speaking the phrase "Walking the fine line... between Pagan... and Christian", after the song ends.
It is one of the songs in the DLC Guitar Hero Virtuoso Pack, available for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Also, a live version (from his 2009 live album, Where the Wild Things Are) is available for download for the Rock Band series of games, through the Rock Band Network.