Good songs with no vocals

The Who have a couple spectacular instrumental overtures on Quadrophenia - 4 Overtures and The Rock. Tommy has some great instrumentals as well. I also love the incredible acoustic guitar on Salamander but Jethro Tull, but that has a couple of lyric lines in it that are kind of afterthoughts

I’m dating myself, but I don’t think anything can come close to the great instrumentals of the 60’s Green Onions - Booker T and the MG’s Telstar - the Tornadoes Apache - the Shadows Walk Don’t Run - the Ventures Wipe Out - the Surfaris Pipeline - The Chantay’s Time is Tight - Booker T Taste of Honey - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

From my HS days — YYZ by Rush.

Metallica - Orion Flotsam & Jetsam - The Jones

Summer Madness Kool and the Gang

^^^ @motorhead -- Dating yourself? You and me both. Great list of classic instrumentals. One of my all-time faves is "Birdland" by Weather Report from 1977. The fretless bass is just incredible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fm10whccto Joe Zawinul – Yamaha grand piano, ARP 2600 and Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer, melodica, vocals Wayne Shorter – soprano and tenor saxophones Jaco Pastorius – fretless bass, mandocello, vocals Manolo Badrena – tambourine Alex Acuña – drums

It's a long instrumental, but does have one line in it: one of these days, pink floyd. David Gilmour just fucking kills it on peddle steel guitar. Classical gas, Mason Williams. Popcorn, hot butter. The first electronic hit song.

sparks-the who to live is to die-metallica joe satriani-up in the sky edgar winter-frankenstein eric johnson-srv srv-scuttle buttin srv-little wing

How quickly we forget “Dueling Banjos “ from the soundtrack of the movie “Deliverance”

La Villa Strangiato - Rush (especially the live version from Exit: Stage Left) Orion - Metallica Classical Gas - Mason Williams Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group Fire on High - Electric Light Orchestra

I would go with a couple of songs used for TV shows: Hawaii 5-0 Miami Vice

Thanks to everyone who mentioned Classical Gas. I loved that instrumental and it’s such a stretch from the stuff I like from Ozzy and Lemmy - just shows how music is universal and all genres are to be appreciated

I love fucking to Bolero by Ravel.

There are a few lyrics but Magnum Opus by Kansas is basically one big jam.

Yes - The Fish. On the album Yessongs. It has some vocalization by Anderson at the end, but no distinct lyrics per say. I saw Chris Squire absolutely burn it up on bass at a live show in the 70's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPC7NEW-1B8

Peter Frampton has an awesome instrumental album titled Fingerprints. There is an excellent instrumental cover of Black Hole Sun. My favorite cut on the album is Blooze, which I have incorporated into an OTC session soundtrack on multiple occasions. Great album!

Thought of a few more gems: Freeway Jam - Jeff Beck, live version with Jan Hammer Anything off of Blow By Blow - Jeff Beck Surfin with the Alien - Joe Satriani Lenny - Stevie Ray Vaughan

How could I forget - The Dixie Dregsand the incendiary guitar work of Steve Morse! Almost all instrumental, favorite cuts include Cruise Control, Free Fall, Dig the Ditch, Take it off the Top, Punk Sandwich, The Bash, Road Expense, Twiggs Approved, Kat Food, and many more!

A few more I thought of: Discipline - King Crimson Mr. Scary - Dokken Apologies to Pearly - ZZ Top Eruption - Van Halen Elton John - Funeral for a Friend Steely Dan - East St. Louis Toodle Oo

Always There - Ronnie Laws

@IWantHerOnMe: Summer Madness Kool and the Gang I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing! Summer Madness is one of the most sampled R&B tracks.

@shadowcat - Bolero by Ravel. Great choice!

"Barcelona Nights", "Santa Fe", Ottmar Liebart "Take Five" - Dave Brubeck "Walk Away" - Thomas Newman (at the end of "Meet Joe Black") "Romancing The Stone" Alan Silvestri "Moonlight Serenade" Glenn Miller

just remembered. not quite sure how i overlooked it as the movie poster is hanging on my bedroom door. theme to the good, the bad and the ugly-ennio morricone

Tom Principato has an entire album of instrumentals called Not One Word. And another excellent track, not on that album, "Return of the Voodoo Thing". "Europa" - Santana "Soul Sacrifice" - Santana "Maggot Brain" - Funkadelic

Lluvia de primavera - Raul DI Blasio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR9ex2iTuO0

"Switched-On Bach" - Wendy Carlos (performed by Carlos and Benjamin Folkman on a Moog synthesizer). "Sing, Sing, Sing" - Gene Krupa

"Sing Sing Sing" Gene Krupa - drums - Big Band! Excellent.

Beastie Boys "Sabrosa" https://youtu.be/BbFCAxGqHP4?si=Fj5NgaR5JrnH4Oud

Brandenburg Concertos, J.S. Bach On Bach Organ Favorites by E. Power Biggs Water Music Suite, G.F. Handel And God Created Great Whales, Alan Hovanhess - very cool, symphonic accompaniment to recorded humpback whale vocalizations ...and I also like Bolero by Ravel

Jessica - Allman Brothers Foreplay - Boston

Fire on High - Electric Light Orchestra. back in the day when boxing was huge on cbs tv, the end of this song was the theme song.

My bad, as any back in the day Bruins fan knows, the Bruin's theme song was called "nutty" The Ventures.

Commodores - machine gun

Music To Watch Girls By- Bob Crewe Generation Rise - Herb Alpert Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione All 3 just seem appropriate for the strip club experience.

oh this is a great list! I got some catching up to do. I'll toss in " love is blue" by Paul Marriott.

Paul Mauriat. dang spell check.

Pretty much anything with Carlos Santana guitar solos!

Tequila!

But can you really call music without lyrics a song?

^A Capella is words without music so why not music without words? I would point out that classical music has been around for centuries and has no words.

Maybe rap would sound better without lyrics.

From Wikipedia ‘What is classified as a song’ A song is a piece of music which contains lyrics and words. Songs may be made by songwriters. Other songs are folk songs, which are songs created by people long ago that have been sung as tradition. Without lyrics it is called music

25 is right - technically a “song” has words by definition.

this makes sense then. take for example van halen's eruption. i always in the back of my mind felt that was never really a song. hell some could even argue that it might not even be music and think of that piece as just merely an excuse to show off technical proficiency. but then again where is the line drawn between a musical piece and a song? with lyrics one has to be generally able to sing them along the guidelines of a melody. so with such a song if you remove the lyrics but the melody is still intact is it then no longer defined as a song anymore?

How has no one mentioned “In memory of elizabeth reed” by the allman brothers or the ultimate instrumental “Watermelon man” by herbie hancock Spottieottiedopaliscious (instrumental) by outkast and “Get down (instrumental)” by nas. I saw someone mention hip hop being better as instrumentals…try those two.

^ Kudos to Assmanjoe for 1) mentioning “In memory of elizabeth reed” and 2) correctly pointing out that in popular music (define that however you want), versions of musical compositions that do not include singing are called "instrumentals." There are definitely quite a few outstanding instrumentals posted in this discussion, a few of which actually have lyrics that are sung in some versions.

I heard this one on the local elevator music station. Love Theme from St. Elmo's fire.. David Foster