Some riffs whisper. Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away" grabs you by the collar, plants a fuzzy power chord in your chest, and asks — very politely — whether you'd like to leave the planet with it. Spoiler: you would, immediately, no packing.
This clip is the funky main riff from "Fly Away," arranged for one guitar. It's short, it's punchy, and it's one of those rare riffs that sounds absolutely enormous while asking almost nothing of your fretting hand.
How the Fly Away riff works
The whole thing is a masterclass in "steal from the pentatonic and pretend it was hard." Kravitz builds the riff out of power chords whose roots come straight from the minor pentatonic scale — root, flat third and fourth — which gives you that I–♭III–IV move basically every great rock riff secretly runs on. Because every root is a pentatonic tone, nothing clashes: you can slam the chords in almost any order and it still sounds like a hit.
The real magic isn't the notes, though — it's the groove. Play the chords bang on the beat and it's karaoke; push and pull the rhythm, leave gaps, let the fuzz breathe, and suddenly the thing struts. Concrete takeaway: grab three or four pentatonic power chords, mute everything between the hits, and let the silence do half the work — that space is where the funk actually lives.
Fair warning: once this riff moves into your amp it pays no rent and it absolutely will not fly away. Want the Guitar Pro file and the tab so you can evict it properly? It's on my Patreon.