Van Halen Diver Down Song by Song Thread

I agree. Just don't like the song. Lyrics, melody, etc. (even in the original) don't move me at all. And I really like a lot of "soul" music from the 60s.

 

Hang em is great

 

The little lyrical trick where "catch as catch can's" final word is also the first word of the phrase "can anybody . . " is a clever thing. I've heard it done both before and after that, but people who got lost in Dave's party-guy image in the 80s sometimes missed cool little details like that. Certainly none of that kind of care came with Sammy Hagar's contributions.

 

I still feel the pain to this day! Re Little Guitars, Top 5 Van Halen song for me. Just love Eddies tone (its fat!) and playing on this. Love the lyrics, the mood , the harmonies. A quintessential Van Halen tune

 

As detailed in Noel Monk's book (and Sammy Hagar's book), the guys in the band had, by 1982, started to realize that they weren't making anywhere near the kind of money they thought they should based on their sales and popularity. Some of that was behavior and money spent on the road. Some of it was not investing and tax-sheltering properly (Hagar talks about this in some detail). Some of it was, until 1984, sharing royalties with Michael Anthony. Some of it was missing out on or choosing to not do licensing or endorsement deals (as discussed by both Monk and Hagar).

Ed probably had good reason to not want to let the Dancing In the Streets backing track go without getting any publishing on it. I do think Dave saw the bigger picture better in that an album at that particular moment was going to better keep their momentum going into the South America and US Festival dates. The price was to let EVH have his way and time with the 1984 recordings. I think that worked, too, as I believe 1984 to be their best album.

 

Ah, so he does complete it with "can". Somehow I missed that. Very clever. I am familiar with the expression as posted above, but I never heard Dave completing it which left me

 

I suspect Diver Down wouldn't have gotten that type of sentiment if they'd cut it to an EP. Problem is, what would be cut to get to that length? Intruder/Pretty Woman were already on the single release and had to be there. Dancing In the Street was slated to be a single. I suppose they could have cut Big Bad Bill (which I love), The Full Bug, and Happy Trails, but it might have still been too long. Ultimately, stretching to album length feels right to me.

 

Oh man, there's this friend of mine who's a big VH fan like me, and we went to the same high school and college and we still stay in contact (all this exposition because sometimes he reads these threads), and I'll never forget the day I brought the first album with Sammy to him and these two or three other guys from school. We're all sitting there while one of us loads the cassette. We're all on the edge of our seats. I don't know if we'd heard any of the album yet, but we're hoping for the best.

We knew before the album was over, that it was over.

 

Skip to 1:58

 

The Full Bug is one of the wildest and most rocking songs ever recorded.

 

And that's supposed to be the best Van Hagar album.

 

New appreciation unlocked

 

I didn't notice that! But then I only just found out "catch's catch can" is what DLR is likely singing. And I've heard that saying before, I just never connected it with "Little Guitars."

But yeah, this is probably some of what Ed meant when he said "Dave is creative."

Dave's lyrics on ADKOT get very "meta." I really like a lot of his lyrics on that album, and there's a lot of his life's wisdom in them. His words really reflect DLR in 2015.

 

If I have to pick a Hagar era LP it would be For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

 

That was my reaction as well. But I had some friends that liked it (obviously less discerning sorts ).

 

He's slowly worked toward being a much stronger lyricist. In Van Halen, he'd pull out these clever bits several times per album, but there was tossed-off material as well. I noticed more care on "Damn Good," for sure. Then on "A Little Ain't Enough," the tunes "Drop In the Bucket" and "Dogtown Shuffle" had some very nice lines. By "Your Filthy Little Mouth," almost all his lyrics were great. Maybe he went backwards a little for DLR Band and Diamond Dave, but I thought his lyrics for ADKOT were really good.

Based on what John 5 (John Lowery) has said about the unreleased album, I'm guessing there's some interesting wordplay there.

And this little internet-only single from a few years ago also has a great lyric. A RSD 7" of this tune backed with "Ain't No Christmas" would be a welcome thing.

 

A fun album I suppose but I think they were trying to be clever and it didn't come off all that well. Too many poor covers for my taste.
I only tracks I really like are the fantastic Little Guitars and The Full Bug.

 

Worth asking: which covers are done poorly, in your view? Or is it just that the material is too disparate to hang together well?

 

But it's actually the worst.

 

You could've used Big Bad Bill/HT as a b-side to the Dancing single, then leave that off the EP.

Kind of unsurprisingly, but the Pretty Woman single dropped the most, 31 to low 80s something like that, the week the album
was released. I think it reached a high of 12, but was starting to descend after 8 weeks.
So in hindsight you could have left that off, put out the ep w Dancing as the lead single.

But yeah, it's fine as an album too, I'd have only trimmed HT.

 

I find them all a bit ham-fisted and clumsy. The only one that I sort of like is "Dancing In The Street".

 

A lot there.
Won't get deep in the business end, but these guys schedule was ridiculous, right up to the end of 1982.
I do remember them having more merch than yr typical band of the era available for purchase.

Weird thing about this era, is Ed is griping about Dave taking things, yet Dave's mad at Ed for working on and giving away his own work for nothing (Beat It single, Wildlife soundtrack)

While the first album was one of those mind blowing landmark albums, personally to me,
I think 1984 was again a real step forward for them, music wise, but it became more commercial, obviously heavily marketed.

 

Little Guitars
Is it their best record? We can arugue for days about that. But it is my favorite by them. Great guitar work from EVH (that staccato bit always reminded me of the Who's Baba or the middle of Wont Get Fooled. Dave's delivery is great, backing vox, everything. I even liked the lyrics - even if they baffled me for decades (up until recently I never knew he was singing "catch as catch" - I always sang "etch-a-sketch")

 

But, the next line is "Anybody in their right mind could see...". If you put 'Can' in front of that, it doesn't make sense.

 

Little Guitars-In my personal very top tier of Van Halen songs. The song is just magical. So many layers/parts to the song and it all works-The Spanish themed acoustic intro, the way Alex's drums kick in, Ed's Rhythm stabs on the intro, the amazing picking on the verses, the economical "glide" guitar solo, and the outro. It's just a masterful arrangement. Among the highlights are Dave's lyrics and vocals. He totally nails the angst and emotion of the song and is one of my favorite DLR performances ever. Dave obviously could nail the cock rock strutter stuff with ease but when he needed to be soulful or dare I say even a bit tender he could do that as well (see "Damn Good" off Skyscraper-another awesome DLR performance).
I never get sick of this song and can focus on different parts of it during repeated listens and still be amazed. The song literally takes me to a different place sometimes.