At times it’s near impossible to reconcile the suave, almost countrified infl ections and bright acoustic strumming with the group behind such beefy, all-the-way-to-eleven anthems as Hot For Teacher, Unchained, Panama etc. With its twangy finger-picked guitar lines, dry drums and lyrics about unsatisfying sex (dreamt up by Sammy Hagar in a 2am session, after Eddie brought him a riff he’d just written), Finish What Ya Started is easily the most un-Van Halen song in the band’s catalogue. How serious, you ask? When Van Halen performed this song live in the 80s, Eddie would often stick to the keys and leave the guitar rhythms – and solo – to Sammy. And indeed, the song’s bright, bouncy and downright pop sound, which features Eddie playing an Oberheim OB-8 synth, made it clear that, yeah, they were serious about that keyboard thing. Released in March 1986 as the first single from 5150, Why Can’t This Be Love was for most people the first music heard from the Sammy Hagar-led Van Halen. Even better, more than half of that time is taken up by a furious EVH solo. Built on an ominous, burbling synth line carried over from the album’s previous track, the instrumental Sunday Afternoon In The Park, the song is a bare-bones rocker that fl ies by in a mere 1:58. One Foot Out The Doorįair Warning’s closing track was reportedly recorded on the quick, when the band literally had one foot out the door of the studio. Since Eddie had already lifted the original solo section and used it in Mean Street, he wrote a new one that, in addition to the intro’s cool chromatic bass figure, really allowed his son, bassist Wolfgang, to strut his stuff. She's The WomanĪfter recording three demo versions – an early self-produced take, one with Gene Simmons in 1976 and another with Ted Templeman in 1977 – Van Halen finally released an official studio version of She’s The Woman on their 2012 album A Different Kind of Truth. Ted heard it and said, ‘Hey, let’s use it for Dancing In The Street.’ Maybe if I played it on guitar on the record it would have been better.” 45. “The riff was taken from a song of my own that I was in the midst of writing. Dancing In The StreetĮddie played this song’s riff on a Minimoog synthesizer processed with the same echo effect he used on Cathedral (also from Diver Down) – “two songs I couldn’t have done without an echo,” he admitted. Combined with the cascades of guitar harmonics that ring throughout, a white-hot solo spot and an intro played with the assistance of a Makita power drill, Poundcake announced that EVH was still a major guitar force to be reckoned with. The massive guitar sound on this track is the result of Eddie overdubbing three rhythm guitar parts: his main six-string, and two tracks of electric 12-string, for which he played a custom model built by English guitar-maker Roger Giffin. Producer Andy Johns convinced him otherwise, but not before Eddie could pull out another blast from the past – he recorded the song using the ’58 Gibson Flying V he played on another 1984 hit, Hot For Teacher. Legend has it that Eddie didn’t want Top Of The World included on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, preferring to focus on fresher material. Top Of The Worldĭoes that opening riff sound a little familiar? That’s because it’s more or less the same one Ed played almost a decade earlier on the fadeout to 1984’s Jump. A live version, lifted from the 1986 Live Without A Net home video, was a minor hit on MTV, allowing viewers who couldn’t make it to the show the opportunity to witness Sam, Ed and Mike march in line formation – and Day-Glo trousers – across the concert stage. This 5150 track, featuring a wide-open cowboy chord riff that sounds like AC/DC playing Kool & The Gang’s Celebration, is one of the most well-known songs of the Sammy Hagar era. Although Eddie’s guitar is uncharacteristically restrained (no solo!), he still contributes some stellar harmonics work and a classic major-chord riff. As such, the emphasis is heavily on the vocals and chorus harmonies (the title refrain was originally ‘ Dance Lolita Dance’, until Roth was convinced otherwise). Dance The Night Away was reportedly inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way, and indeed, the song is one of the few pure pop tunes of the Dave Lee Roth era.
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