1972 Classic Rock Hit, With 'One of the Finest Organ Solos' Ever, Became a Timeless Motivational Anthem
When it comes to '70s rock, guitar solos get all the glory...but the decade produced some pretty legendary organ solos, too: "Light My Fire" by the Doors, "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple are just a few noteworthy examples.
Of course, if there's one person who knows what it takes to make an organ solo memorable, it would have to be Rick Wakeman, widely considered to be one of the best keyboardists of all time. So it was a pretty big deal when the former Yes member and prolific solo artist gave Rod Argent's work on the 1972 Argent hit, "Hold Your Head Up," the highest level of praise.
"The organ solo in 'Hold Your Head Up' is, for me, one of the finest organ solos on a record," Wakeman told Classic Rock, adding, "It's brilliantly put together, and from an era where you couldn't go back and correct notes and redo things. It's a true solo. A little work of art...It's just brilliant, so good."
Written by Argent and Chris White (who was in The Zombies with Argent, though he wasn't a member of Argent the band), "Hold Your Head Up" was released as a single in 1971 and went on to peak at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972 - the band's only single to appear on that chart.
As Argent singer/guitarist Russ Ballard told Classic Rock in a 2010 interview, "Hold Your Head Up" came to life in the studio in an unexpected way.
"I wanted to do 'Hold Your Head Up' incredibly fast and the band wanted it more slowly," Ballard recalled. "When we recorded it, all that ‘Hold your head up, wooooaaaah!' wasn't in the original, the way we'd rehearsed it. Rod just came up with it in the studio. You throw in your own ideas and it does make the sum bigger, you know?"
"We'd toured a lot and that really helped us refine our sound," he continued. "When we weren't in the studio, we gigged pretty much non-stop from 1970 to '72. We did a 12-week tour of America in '70 playing with the bigger bands, the heavier bands, and I sussed their appeal was much more beat-led, much more about the rhythm. I would have liked Argent to have gone that way, actually. We were very experimental in many ways. I was more into tunes, to be truthful."
While the way Argent went didn't lead to any more chart-topping hits, "Hold Your Head Up" is still hitting home with listeners, particularly those who need a bit of encouragement:
And if it's bad
Don't let it get you down
You can take it
And if it hurts
Don't let them see you cry
You can make it
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
In 2020, Brian Kachejian of Classic Rock History ranked "Hold Your Head Up" at #1 on a list of Argent's Top 10 songs, calling it "one of the premier songs of the classic rock era."
As further proof, in the years since its release, the tune has been covered by a number of notable bands, including Steppenwolf, Uriah Heep, and Mother Love Bone...but Argent's original organ solo reigns supreme.
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