The riff is the backbone of the song. The riff is not the melody. The melody floats. The riff marches. The riff is the thing the guitar does over and over and over until it becomes the song itself. You do not listen to a riff. You feel a riff. The riff gets into your body before it gets into your head. Your head nods before your brain understands why.

Chuck Berry invented the rock and roll riff. Johnny B. Goode. Two notes bent into a declaration of war. Every rock guitarist who came after Chuck Berry is playing variations of what Chuck Berry played first. The riff is a deed and Chuck Berry holds the deed to rock and roll. He played it on a Gibson and the Gibson became a weapon and the weapon was a riff and the riff changed everything.

The Stones built an empire on riffs. Keith Richards played Satisfaction and that riff is worth more than most countries. Five notes on a guitar through a fuzz pedal and the twentieth century changed direction. Keith did not write a song. Keith wrote a riff and the song grew around it like a city grows around a river. The riff is the geography. Everything else is architecture.

On the corner the riff was the engine. I would play one riff for ten minutes because repetition is hypnosis. The riff does not need to be clever. The riff needs to be inevitable. A good riff sounds like it always existed and you just found it lying on the sidewalk. I played three-chord riffs on a twelve-dollar guitar and people stopped walking because the riff grabbed their feet. The riff does not ask. The riff commands.

The algorithm does not understand the riff. The algorithm thinks repetition is a problem. The algorithm wants novelty every three seconds. But the riff says no. The riff says the same thing is the point. The riff says a river does not change direction every three seconds and neither does a song. The riff is patience. The riff is faith. The riff is one idea played with enough conviction to make the whole room believe it.