Van Halen: Fair Warning (1981): Song by Song

HEAR ABOUT IT LATER 1981 (E. Van Halen, A. Halen, Anthony, Roth) (4:35)

“Hear About It Later” was originally written on keyboards, but then recorded on Fair Warning with a Fender Stratocaster guitar. The beginning of the song reminds the listener of the intro to “Women In Love” is, unquestionably, Eddie’s more beautiful and subtle pieces. Running his guitar through a flanger and picking the guitar notes straight as opposed to tapping, the intro as a unique feel for a Van Halen song.

The band comes in at full tilt at 0:31 with a patent Roth scream and Eddie is relegated to the right channel carrying the melody with his usual aplomb, dexterity, and taste while doing some licks on the left channel. Alex and Michael chug along keeping the pace of the song going with, Roth in his typical hypo-manic mode, belting this one out with equal parts talking and singing the lyrics (frankly, the lyrics for this one are rather nonsensical, but certainly work in terms of the melody of the tune).

The bridge at 2:28 is quite melodic which runs into one of the finest parts of the song where Eddie drops out and the rhythm section goes into a heavy groove, with Alex pounding on the cowbell and Anthony laying down a heavy bass line for a few bars. Eddie then enters with some creative chording and then jumps into one of his frenetic, whammy bar aided solos and then the band returns to the bridge section (listen to Eddie’s rhythm playing here) and it’s back to the chorus.

“Hear About It Later” is definitely one of the greatest mody, melodic rockers the band ever cranked out. It’s equal parts beautiful and brooding plus has a ton of attitude packed into it. I love the build up at the end with Alex banging out the rhythm on his double bass drums (check out Eddie’s rapid fire lick at 4:05) and Roth’s trademark yelp at the end to close it out.

I put “Hear About It Later” up there with “Women In Love” as one of the band’s best in terms of melding brilliant melody and nuance with crunchy hard rock. It’s a perfect song.

 

Good players, no doubt, but Albert nor Joe would be talked about in terms of being virtuoso players. The closest BÖC has/had in terms of that is Donald Roeser. But, yeah, sure those guys are great. Of course Gregg and Duane Allman come to mind and I'm sure jazzers/progressive guys like Gregg Bissonette and his brother, Matt, qualify, too (both in Dave's band for a time, btw). So sure there are others. I guess my Van Halen geek meter is running high at the moment and maybe I'm overrating them.

 

Just found this thread (note that I also normally do not participate in these types of threads that rank songs).

Mean Streets - perfect tempo, mean guitar riff, sets the stage for the album. I like it.

Dirty Movies - This is the song that got me interested in the band. No joke! Prodding tempo, heavy guitar riff, all-out assault on the ears, and naughty lyrics. Love it! Strangely, this album came out shortly before my flirtation with fundamentalist christianity.

Sinner's Swing - Never cared for this track. I was never a big fan of speed metal. I prefer it to be more bluesy, like the last song.

Hear About It Later - Meh!

 

Van Halen doing "Hear About It Later" from the Fair Warning tour in 1981. Again, the quality sucks, but it's fun to watch. I definitely remember them coming out doing that jumping in unison thing.

 

Oh damn, forgot about the Allman Brothers
And Toto, regardless of rather or not you're a fan

 

Heya Grant.

This isn't so much about "ranking" the songs as just doing an overview of them and looking at some of the good or bad aspects of them. Personally, I don't ever give the songs a rating at all. I might mention if I like one or not, but I'm really trying to be objective about what I'm hearing and just giving a run down of what catches my ear plus providing some background to the album and songs. Glad you could join us.

 

Yeah, definitely the Porcaros! Jeff, Steve, and Mike were/are incredibly talented. Jeff was one of the premier studio drummers in the 70's. Awesome player.

 

Oh yeah, love that guy, he's the reason I'm a Rosanna fan

 

"Hear About it Later"-Epic VH. My Favorite song on the album. The clean intro is mesmerizing. It starts as somewhat typical Eddie melodicism however to me it feels like it takes a little detour after the first run through the riff and then descends down to the lower register and becomes some thing else, almost beautiful and a bit odd at the same time as the flanging becomes more intense. When The band kicks in Ed's playing actually to me sounds a bit Hendrix-ian especially where his watery flanger setting reminds me of Hendrix's univibe sound at times complete with dive bombs. Likewise his playing is more about creating a wall of sound with some overtones being created vs more typical single note/chord riffs.
The Bridge(?) before the solo takes another little twist and sounds like old school classic melodic Van Halen.
I love the breakdown, Al's playing and Ed's solo are great. The solo at times is almost avante garde, just noise, again not sure why but it reminds me of Hendrix just a bit. My favorite bit in the solo is where Eddie plays this playful little riff (3:05) and then in response answers with a couple of dissonant notes (3:09).
Just a masterpiece IMHO.

 

Hear About it Later might well be my favorite typical VH rocker from any era. It's got all of the essential ingredients in the right measure musically and vocally/lyrically is a natural for Roth; I like the "matter of factly" tone that comes across in his singing of it, not to mention the great harmonies in the chorus. A or 9 out of 10 rating.

 

"Hear About It Later" is my favorite Van Halen song. Has been for 30+ years. There's a couple of transcendent moments in this song for me.

1) Right after the bridge when Alex starts pounding on the cowbell. (Thanks Godshifter for identifying the drum type for me)
2) Near the end when Dave is screaming "I don't, I don't, waahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!!" and Eddie is doing some awesome fills at the same time.

"Hear About Later" is a signature VH anthem while at the same time, falling within the dark theme of the album. Love it to death.

 

On a random note I'm listening to the Goldwest Ballroom show ('76) and their cover of Aerosmith's Last Child during the verses reminds me a bit of the verses on Dirty Movies-just a little.

 

HEAR ABOUT IT LATER

More cowbell Alex!

I love it and like TexasBuck stated, "It fit's in perfectly with the theme of this album"

 

I can't remember exactly when, but for me at some point after years of spins, "Hear About It Later" went from "that's a good song!" to "holy crap, that song is a BEAST!".

I can't think offhand of any other VH song that took so long to kick my butt. (Well, unless the H stands for Hagar, and I'm still waiting on those).

 

Dirty Movies:

Are the boys doing some proggy "odd time" signatures in the middle breakdown, just before the "hey you remember when that girl was Prom Queen" part?

 

For many years I was listening for Edward's shred, and was less interested in overall song flow.

By combining shred with an exceedingly perfect flow, a BEAST of a tune (Hear About It Later) was indeed born.

Part and parcel as to why Fair Warning has eclipsed the debut as I grow older.

 

I think that's a lot of it for me. I was 16 when FW came out, so it took some maturing for me to start following "this rocks!" with "why does this rock?".

Once ya figure that out, a lot of songs rock even harder than you thought.

 

the way that Eddie and Alex mesh at the beginning of the Hear About It Later solo - something that wasn't so possible 3 years earlier.

 

Hear About It Later: Catchy chorus, nice bridge. Kind of boring otherwise. Still, I'm feeling generous today, so 7/10.

 

Speed metal?!?!?

Sinner's Swing, like I'm the One, the Full Bug, and Hot For Teacher is a boogie. It's a fast-tempo boogie, but it's well short of speed metal tempos.

That's like someone saying they don't like Chic because they dislike jazz.

 

Interesting that you mention boogie ... has the influence of boogie in rock completely disappeared, or am I missing out on modern bands that play in that style?

 

To him it’s “speed metal”. Whatever. I’ve found it’s useless to argue over defining what another individual is hearing. His “speed metal” is your “boogie”. I think everyone understands what’s what in the end.

 

Mean Street

That was pretty cool. I didn't realize when I clicked on the link that I would be spending almost an hour with it, but not being a Van Halen historian the way many of you probably are, most of that was new to me. It was definitely cool hearing about how he and Alex grew up, and some of the insights into his musical development.

 

Angus and Malcolm?

 

I loved the heck out of this song. Used to play it all the time. Love the place Eddie takes us here and the path to get there. Minor issue: the verse vox are not great and neither is the lyric. But I’ll take it as a lift. I don’t really like the break at 1:50 (cowbell or no). But I’m just being picky (pun). It’s a keeper.