My buddies and I spent a good amount of time back in the day head-banging to Van Halen – and when I say Van Halen, I mean the real, original Van Halen, when David Lee Roth was still the front man. Oh, “Van Hagar” did some decent stuff, but it just wasn’t the same.
I remember an interview with David Lee Roth around 1982 or so, I want to say it was in “Rolling Stone” which at the time was still about music and not lefty politics – well, not so much. But Dave was holding forth in good fashion about his and the other band members' working-class origins, and how they were finding success.
The interviewer finally broke in: “You know, Dave, you can’t buy happiness.”
Dave’s reply, accompanied by a photo of the typically broad David Lee Roth grin, was “Maybe not, but I can buy a yacht big enough to sail right up next to it.”
Add to that Eddie Van Halen's amazing, sometimes manic guitar work, and you've got a great band. I think Eddie may well have been on the spectrum, but he sure knew how to wield an axe.
Van Halen did some fun stuff. It’s difficult to pick out five or even six, so consider these six of my twenty or so Van Halen favorites, the ones that perhaps send me into the deepest reaches of nostalgia. Van Halen makes me remember what it was like to be young, and that’s not a bad thing.
Jump (1984): Few could command a stage like David Lee Roth, and while this is a staged performance for a music video, it puts Roth’s typical stage antics and his not-inconsiderable charisma to best use. It’s a fun song and a fun video. Also, Eddie Van Halen sets aside his guitar for a moment to do some great work on keyboards.
See Related: Start Your Weekend Right With Five Great Live Guitar-Rock Tunes
Panama (1984): Another fun one from the great album “1984,” with a fun if somewhat dated video. I’m not sure what it is about the Isthmus of Panama to inspire a Van Halen song, but I’m not going to argue with it. And, given the current fuss about the territorial status of the Canal Zone and the Chinese influence over it, it seems appropriate.
Hot for Teacher (1984): This one resulted in a little controversy back in the day, as this was the time when a few early teacher/student, let’s say, “liaisons” were coming to the public’s eye, and the claim was that this song aggravated that. Color me skeptical. It’s just not credible that some kid is going to go after his teacher after hearing a Van Halen tune, even if she looks like the teacher in this video.
You Really Got Me (1978): A remake, this one, but a good remake. This song was originally done by the British band The Kinks, written by Kinks frontman Ray Davies. But Van Halen had their own way of doing things, and this song, with Eddie Van Halen’s wild guitar work and David Les Roth’s wailing vocals, is as good as the original – but boy, yeah, different.
See Related: Start Your Weekend Right With Five Great Fun Rock Tunes From the Early Seventies
Runnin’ With the Devil (1978): This was a little darker than most Van Halen tunes. It strikes a more serious tone, but we still get to hear Eddie’s great guitar work. This being from Van Halen’s eponymous first album, I always wondered if they recorded it before they really hit their stride – but I still like it.
Dance the Night Way (1979): From the album Van Halen II, this one always brings back memories of one thing: Our high school Christmas dance in 1979. I wasn’t normally the kind of kid who went to high school dances; I was more the type to sneak around to the back door at the height of the festivities and drop in a live skunk (but that’s a story for another day.) But that year I had a girlfriend, my high school sweetie, who wanted to go, and we ended up rocking to this tune.
Oh, and I’m still in touch with my old high school sweetie. After over 45 years, she remains one of my dearest friends.
We all tend to associate sensory inputs with memories, and no sensory input does that more than music. Back in the day, we were dependent on our car radios for music while out and about, other than the lucky few of us who had 8-track or cassette decks. Van Halen was getting a lot of air time, so to this day, when I hear one of these songs, I can easily picture myself at 17, careering around the white limestone-graveled roads of Northeast Iowa, with the sound turned up and the windows down, a bottle of pop hanging from the door in a macramé holder my sister made for me, and a pack of smokes in my t-shirt pocket. Those, dear readers, are great memories, and thanks to Van Halen for prompting them.
Have you any Van Halen favorites? As always, the comments are yours!
