No, don't kick theory aside. Another way to think of theory is as a set of lego blocks. In Lego, every block has a purpose and to build a house we need to put the right blocks together in the correct order.

In music we replace the lego blocks with chords and notes. To "build" a song, we need to find the chords that fit together to give us a sound that is pleasing to us and to get those cool solos, we need the right notes that fit in with our chords.

Here is a very simple example:

In the key of C major you have the following chords:

C major - D minor - E minor - F major - G major - A minor - B diminished - 7 chords.

With the exception of the last chord - B diminished - you could put any of the other 6 together and it would sound pretty good. For instance if you play C major - F major - G major in a strum it would sound pretty good, and would be a classic 1 - 4 - 5 progression. A lot of music has been written using a 1 - 4 - 5 progression.

This is very simplistic, but just think along the lines that theory just helps us identify which chords and notes work together.