Which song by the American rock band Kiss uses a Beethoven melody for its opening guitar riff?

Purely coincidentally eponymous with a thrice-familiar Charles Dickens novel, the Kiss song 'Great Expectations' never charted and is thus sort of an overlooked afterthought in a panoply of the band's charting hits, particularly in an album - 'Destroyer' (1976) - with five such songs.

Still, 'Great Expectations' is very unique and original in the heavy metal/hard rock genre in its use of a Classical melody. It is a rare lyrical, gentle and slow-paced song by Kiss, whose songs are usually loud, boisterous and chainsaw-like bass guitar-oriented.

The opening guitar riff directly quotes opening bars of the main theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (titled 'Pathétique', 1798). Subsequently, the first part of the sung stanza is in a variation thereof. Gene Simmons, the lead vocalist for the song, also co-wrote the melody with producer Bob Ezrin.

Simmons and Paul Stanley, fellow guitarists and co-lead vocalists, are the only constant members of Kiss after the mid-1980s departures of fellow charter members Ace Frehley, a guitarist, and drummer Peter Criss.

Since forming in 1973, Kiss has long been unique for their in-concert pyrotechnics and even more so for costumes and make-up, with Simmons as a demon; Stanley a star child; Frehley an alien; and Criss a cat man. After five would-be 'farewell tours', Kiss claims the current tour they're engaged in will be the actual farewell in 2023.